I boarded the VIP bus back to Yangon, expecting the same amazing experience as the bus to Bagan, unfortunately the driver was under the impression that tourists couldn't handle the heat here (fair assumption) and had the A.C on full blast the full 16 hours. After pestering him a number of times I gave up and resigned myself to travelling in a fridge and was actually glad to arrive in the hot and sticky Aung Mingalar station. But no rest for the wicked as I hopp...

At Ngyshwe a village on the banks of Inle lake we said goodbye to our Jomaine, Pou Pou and one member of the group. However after sleeping side by side for the last few nights the rest of us had bonded and so decided to stick together a bit longer. Matt (AUS) Matilde (FR) and me in one room and the German girls in another. Inle lake is beautiful but huge at over 13 miles long and 7 miles wide, so we did the necessary hiring a boat for the day and went off expl...

Note: Well as I'm currently about 6 weeks behind on my blog- I'm going to summarise quite a bit- sorry! I was really lucky managing to get a place on one of the group treks as they were actually full, but they decided to squeeze me in and allow a group of 7, so we were 2 German girls, a Swiss Girl (travelling together) a Dutch guy, an Australian guy, a French girl and me. And leading the troops we had Jomaine our really sweet young Burmese guide and our savio...

Well I have to say Manadalay is not my favourite place. For me it was just a big city on a grid system, lacking character. On our scout for accommodation Cormac and I came across probably the worst 'hotel' I've seen so far on the trip- essentially each floor divided into small cells, with the 'walls' made of plywood that didn't quite reach to the ceiling. The sheets and mosquito nets were that horrible yellowed colour. At this point we'd stumbled around quite a...

So we arrived in Bagan about 4am and had a slightly different welcoming committee than the usual taxi touts- horse and cart drivers! After much negotiating we decided on a variety of transport- girls in horse & cart and boys on trishaw to hunt out our new digs. In the end we decided to treat ourselves to a place with a.c given the heat here, so we ended up in the Grand Empire, which was actually the best place I stayed in for the whole country. Wendy &...