30 miles. 39 stations. 3 hours for the entire loop.
The train is basic. Really basic. The city tried adding air conditioned carriages, but no one bought tickets, so they were done away with. Those who desire climate control and can afford it prefer cars. The primary market for the Circle Line isn't upscale, so basic is fine for most passengers.
In fact, the real downside of air conditioning, outside of higher ticket prices, is that glass windows create a barrier between those inside the train and the world outside. The Circle Line, like so many other trains across South and East Asia, is both transport and market. Keeping passengers in and the world out would destroy much of its functionality and many of the hundreds of jobs it makes possible.
A tangential, yet no less important, benefit is the lure of adventure and community and, for some, wonder trains confer. The Circle Line isn't just a geographic loop around a city. To those riders, hawkers, trainside service providers and all the rest who are both its beneficiaries and benefactors, the train is the circle of daily life. Children are nursed along its platforms, teens study and socialize, and adults ply trades and sell goods wherever the train comes to a stop.
And, as a local commuter line, stops are frequent.
Bullhorn at the ready just in case not everyone in the carriage can hear his pleas, a volunteer collects money for a reforestation program. Charitable drives in the streets of Yangon are common, usually school or community group projects staffed by young social warriors, always energetic and fervently after a few Kyat to help someone in need.
The Circle Line's platforms make natural marketplaces, offering convenience so riders needn't make an extra stop on the way home. One stop may be a poultry market. The next a fruit and vegetable market. The next a collection of fishmongers.
Others make do as small traders, like this woman who treks to the wet market early each morning then spends the day reselling to Circle Line passengers on their way home.
Life slows only for those who can't stay awake. For the rest of the Circle Line market, each passing train - every 45 minutes to an hour from 4:00 in the morning until after 10:00 at night - brings a fresh group of customers.
Merchants move between stations, refreshing stock or even staking out a place where the train slows enough to climb nimbly aboard.
