As we are on a really tight budget for our Asian trip we worked out we could only afford to be in Myanmar for 10 days - and as you can only fly in and out we had to make a decision that 10 days would have to do :-( The accommodation is much more expensive than other neighbouring countries and you have to pay for many government entrance fees. So we planned a whistlestop tour from Yangon to Inle Lake, then to Bagan and finish off in Mandalay........

We didn't really know what to expect in Yangon, after reading it was like going back in time to how SE Asian cities used to be.....

We arrived on the air asia flight and the terminal was pretty modern, after researching the best way to change our dollars into Kyat we found it is actually best to do it at the airport at the proper currency converter kiosks - this is only a recent thing though, previously it was best to do it on the black market! There were loads of ATMs and adverts saying you could use visa at this place and that. Anyway we headed out of the airport and shared a taxi with an Ozzie girl we had met - the roads were all very modern with some nice cars on the roads. We went to the place we had booked called Thamada Hotel - it was fairly expensive at 25 dollars per night but we had heard that accomodation is not cheap here. The room was huge but a bit manky but it had air con which was amazing as it was about 40c outside. After dumping our bags we went to a little place next door and sampled our first taste of Myanmar food which was some very spicy sweetcorn curry with rice - it was OK! We were staying right near the Shwedagon Pagoda so we were a bit of a distance out of the main city centre but we decided to walk in the baking sun to investigate. We were hit by a very familiar smell from our time in India of betel nuts - (people chew them wrapped in leaves and it makes all their teeth go red and after they have chewed it they gob it out on the pavement so you have red smelly splats everywhere!). It got more busy as we headed into town and we stopped to walk through a market selling jewellery - there was a power cut while we were in there (the first of many!) We then walked towards a busy road and there was a big golden temple which acted like a roundabout to all the crazy traffic, the surrounding buildings were quite interesting, there were some french looking apartments with charming windows, a big english looking building which looked similar to ones in Mumbai and also a church. We sat near some fountains in a pretty park and watched people go by their daily business - a man and his daughter came up and asked if they could take their picture with us (this happened in India too!). We went and found somewhere that could book us bus tickets to Inle Lake and afterwards went and got a soft drink in a very busy local cafe on the street. It was strange coming from Bangkok to here as there didn't seem much sign of anything western - the music blaring out from various places was all burmese and people were drinking locally branded things, there didn't seem to be any big adverts for western things and nothing like starbucks or McDonalds - it was very refreshing!! We didn't want to pay for a taxi back up to our hotel so we decided to walk. A man came up to us and just wanted to wish us a nice stay in Myanmar- no ulterior motive, just being pleasant! We got a bit lost on the way back but stumbled upon a Shan noodle place which was very tasty. We did eventually find our way back and saw the Shwedagon pagoda all lit up - it did look pretty amazing with the gold shining brightly. We stopped to take some pictures, while we were standing there two Burmese ladies got in a pretty nasty row with eachother which gathered a little crowd, we don't know what it was about but it ended when one of them picked up a table from a street kitchen and hurled it at the other one!

The next day we went and had brunch at the little place next door, this time it was a spinach curry but it was cooked with a fish paste which I didn't really like but Kam did! We decided to go to look around the Shwedagon pagoda - it was quite expensive to get in. We should have gone a lot earlier because it was now about the hottest part of the day and you are not allowed to wear any type of shoe or sock in there. We got a lift up from the north entrance and then proceeded to do a funny hopping dance over the burning white marble floor - it was pretty painful and we just had to keep running into the shade. It was very amazing inside though - but kind of reminded us of a Buddhist disneyland - everything was just so bright and golden - lots of buddhas everywhere. We looked around for a while and burnt our feet some more before leaving to have a walk around a very pretty park. We then had to get a taxi to the bus station for our 4pm bus to Inle Lake - the bus station was miles out of Yangon and took 45 minutes to get there. We prepared ourselves for the 17 hour bus journey ahead of us .......