What will happen next?

I have very fond memories of my time in Myanmar. I was astonished by the friendliness and uniqueness of the country at every turn. This admiration came to a peak during my journey to Nyaungshwe for the Taunggyi Fire Balloon Festival. The festival itself was one of the most overwhelming and amazing experiences of my life. Hundreds of people grabbed my hands to dance, I rode on a terrifying human-powered Ferris wheel, and of course I experienced hot air balloons raining explosives onto the crowd below as they ascended to the heavens. Pure madness. Instead of going into the details of that night, I prefer to explain how I got to that point. The journey there was what I consider the epitome of travelling.
My travel companion and I decided to take an apparently gorgeous train ride from Meiktila to Nyaungshwe. We didn’t expect much from Meiktila, a small town with one foreigner guesthouse, but boy did we have an amazing time there! The lovely guesthouse owners taught us a great deal about the realities of living in Burma, despite the potential consequences of speaking freely about the government. Then we watched a pagoda festival parade before being swept up into the festivities and were made to feel like guests of honour.
Although that was a late night, we caught the 5 am train to Nyaungshwe. The train quickly broke down in the middle of the jungle for seven hours. During that time I was escorted down the tracks to the nearest station by a military guard, and I befriended a few foreigners as well as one drunken train mechanic (is that why the train was broken for 7 hours?!). Despite spending most of the actual train journey in the dark, I would have to say that the ride was beautiful.
Lucky for me, my journey did not end there! I was cold, tired, and carrying my heavy backpack, so I was relieved when I arrived at my hotel. Unfortunately the owners had given away my room at that point, and there was nowhere left for me to go due to the festival. My grumpy moto-taxi driver obligingly dropped me off at the local monastery and quickly disappeared into the night. That’s when about fifteen dogs appeared before me, barking enough to wake up the whole town! I was starting to become scared when a monk peeked his head out from a window and pointed me in the direction of a big room where for a small fee I was given a blanket and a pillow. With that I finally lay my head to rest alongside about two dozen snoring travellers like myself, and slept like a baby.