A night in the monastery. A day in the mountains. The second day of trekking took us through more villages, paddy fields, and to our favourite scenic spot of the trip. JJ had morphed into GayJay for today. He burnt the back of his neck from the blistering sun yesterday, so wore my girly scarf and Joe's Vietnamese style hat - I think the trend might catch on! Joe's sister-in-law gave us all a mini make-over using the Myanmar make-up. This is a bark that the w...

The first day of the trek we walked for a total of seven hours. The scenery was stunning, but it was the people who made it. Not JJ and Joejoe, they were brilliant, but the real stars were the villagers were beautiful, sweet and friendly. A few of the more remote villagers had never been accessed by white people, so the majority of the younger generation had probably hadn't visited the towns, and therefore not seen a white face! The funniest example was two y...

Our first experience of a bus in Myanmar was very positive. The chairs were roomy and comfortable and although they didn't go right back, both of us managed to get some sleep. The tourist buses are all new, so who knows how long this high quality will last! The driver was distinctly asian as we careered around the mountain roads at 100mph in the dark! We arrived in Kalaw at 3pm, the exact time we were told - not very SE asian - we were greeted by a happy chap...

Yangon, the renamed capital of this elusive country, was our first destination. We managed to exchange our dollars with ease and even used the ATMs with no problems, the worrying beforehand was for no reason. Our taxi driver was very friendly and we immediately began noticing some similarities with India; the men and women wore lunghi style outfits and chewed paan (betel nut). For the first time in two days we didn't see another white face! We explored the ...

Jobs in Thailand We were only in Bangkok for a few days and as we have both been here before it was not a time for sightseeing, but to get stuff done! We got out Myanmar visa, searched for some things we need for Africa, met with Bebs and Simon for a tasty Thai dinner and I had an amusing Skype interview with Chris and Mike at TTC.