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 Shwedagon Pagu, an extremely impressive pagoda on top of a hill. On the top of the pagoda there is a HUGE diamond surrounded by over 5448 diamonds and 2317 other jewels, and a total of 53 metric tonnes of gold! Not your average place of worship.

We had a stroll around Kandawgyi lake on a hot afternoon and visited Scott's market to pick up a few souvenirs and a snack for lunch.

Yangon traffic is congested to say the least and the taxi drivers find it hard to say no - they never knew where we wanted to go and we always went the wrong way, luckily for us it was a fixed price!

In the centre of the city is another pagoda - Sule paya - which is situated on a roundabout, it beats Milton Keynes in originality!

We tried to learn some Myanmar language but we have had a few blank stares, so perhaps we haven't got it quite right!