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I am checking schedules and visas, packing luggage, and aligning the stars. This is the one thing I am good at; the flying, security check points, head phones, passports, airports for days, staying hydrated and squirreling away pretzels and peanuts. I am mediocre, middle of the row with just about everything I do - except this. My heart beats to the dings of airline intercom announcements, figuring things out where I don't speak the language is my high of choice, diving humbly into a culture I don't know is the breath in my lungs. I belong here. It is midnight and I am crammed with 11 other people into a 8 passenger van. Formerly Burma, Myanmar is a cross of religions like I've never seen. People draped over one another with a hot climate culture I've been craving forever, karma creating normalcies that seem almost utopian under molding apartment buildings ten stories high, Bayan trees bleeding through the concrete. This is more like coming home than visiting somewhere new. In the morning I accidentally flash monks across the street, drink too much coffee, and laugh with my roommate until we cry. Milk tea and pad thai permeate the air, flora eats away at the manmade structures, pagodas reach toward the sky, and Burmese hums around me. The glittering gold leaf and blinding white marble of the temple smell of swimming pool and burnt something or other. Bare feet, melted candles, and wild tangles of gold are spun together into altars. I am drinking out of a coconut while wiping sweat off my cheek, exhausted and content. The ferry terminal's dirt floor stands in stark contrast to the gilded Buddhist spires we just left. It is crowded here and I can taste the air. When the bell rings, we all flood out of the gates down the ramp and onto the boat. Kids sprint through the crowds selling apples and quail eggs and nail clippers as music blares from the speakers. Rain clouds give momentary relief from the heat, before clearing away to create a sauna. The muddy waters of the Yangon River slap against ferry, skiff, and barge alike. Disembarking, the motorcyclists don't seem discouraged by my skirt as they are wearing longyis, so I climb on the back. The wind whips through my soul as we pass through narrow streets framed by jungle, and I believe in magic. I fall in love so quickly with the humid greens and browns against the attempted concrete and cement. I love this place I didn't know existed, Myanmar is the last thing I expected.