Yet another pre-dawn start. We have seen more sunrises on this tour than we have in the last decade. A comment on our fellow travellers in Myanmar is in order. We have decided to change the name of our tour to the "Seniors Sunrise Tour of SE Asia". I think because of the high cost of travel here and the fact that the country has recently opened up after being closed for so long all the seniors are rushing to get here before their travelling days are over. We are ...

We had a really nice day today. Our lady guide Hti met us at the hotel and we boated off onto the lake. Upon seeing the first leg-rowing fisherman we suspected that he might have been a hotel employee in costume but as the day developed and we saw more and more we were convinced it was authentic. The lake is very shallow (about 1.5m) by the look of it, although you cannot see the bottom for weed. The water is mostly clear and clean except near the villages and sh...

We had arranged for the hotel to provide a car and driver to transfer us to Inle Lake View Hotel this morning and all went well until we reached the town at the lake and the driver informed us that that was as far as he went and we had to get a boat across the lake to the hotel. As you can imagine, we were not too pleased and a long and confused telephone conversation ensued between driver, hotel manager, Madam and helpful passer-by. Manager artfully proposed tha...

Today we have a "trek" planned. Our guide is a little guy from Chin state in the West which is one of the present conflict areas. He gave us a little information about the problems but albeit from one perspective - he is a Christian and the problem is with the Muslims. The walk did provide much needed exercise after all the days sitting in planes and cars but it hardly rated as a "trek". We walked for 1.5 hours up a valley to Pa-o hill tribe village but they were...

Off again with our usual early start, leaving the hotel at 6:30 am. The same old scrum at the airport with all the flights leaving at about 10 minute intervals. We are old hands at the embarkation procedure by now. In case you are wondering about the title of today's entry - Heho is the name of the airport serving the Shan state area which is our destination. Every departure has been like the Berlin airlift with planes swooping in one after the other, quick turn ...