Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
women who were so famous in these parts. Or it could be a Shangri-
La of such magnificence and splendor that nothing like it had ever
been seen, even in the movies.
The only complaint was from Roxanne, who lamented, “I wish I
could see where the hell we’re going so I could film this stuff.”
At last the truck came to an idle. The passengers stuck their heads
out. The trees were much taller here, and the canopy was so dense
that only thin slants of light fell in. The road continued upward
to the left, but my friends saw two of the men jump from the truck’s
cab and approach a mattress-thick wall of brush and tangles along
the mountainside. The taller one gave a shout, and together they
grasped handholds of vines, which, with a grunt, they slowly lifted.
The moving vegetation revealed itself to be a gate of greenery,
strands and branches of bushes, ferns, bamboo, and vines, lashed to­
gether onto a lightweight frame. This was placed all the way to the
side, so that my friends, some of whom had climbed down from the
truck bed, could now see an opening, a leafy archway leading to an
unknown world, what seemed as fantastical to them as the entry into
Alice’s Wonderland. The men in the cab gave a shout for everyone to
climb back into the truck. The travelers hoisted themselves in, the
truck reversed, and with a gunning of the engine, it aimed its nose
toward the opening. It seemed impossible that it could fit through,
but the vegetation gave way with scrapes and snaps, and the truck
squeezed through the resistant portal like a newborn bursting its
mother’s perineum.
They had entered a green-veined new world, a vibrant, single-
hued world of wildlife that quivered and breathed. Everywhere the
travelers looked, it was choked with creepers, vines, and liana hang­
ing, winding, and snaking their way through, making it seem that
the jungle ended only a few feet in front of them. It was disorienting
to see so much green. The tree trunks were mossy and bedecked with
epiphytes: ferns, bromeliads, and tiny pale orchids took root in the
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