With a half a day to kill, the thought of finishing my Burmese adventure early wasn't a pleasant one and the temptation of just one more outward bound excursion was too great. I persuaded myself I shouldn't leave Myanmar without visiting the capital, Naypyitaw. In all fairness, its sort of on the way back to Yangon. When I booked my bus ticket, I remember thinking this could either work really well or it could all go horribly wrong. Sitting in a pitch black bus ...

I was sat enjoying the last of my extended breakfast, flicking through the Lonely Planet, when I came across the opening paragraph for Inle Lake and Shan State. It reads 'With rebel groups, warlords and drug dealers living in its mysterious mountains, Shan State is largely unexplored by and off-limits to foreigners'. Although I've merely scratched the surface, besides the soldier at the Palaung Village, I haven't found any evidence to suggest such things. Maybe ...

The road to Hsipaw, pronounced 'see-por', continues with a 6 hour train journey. Well they said 6 hours, I was sceptical when I first heard it and immediately added an extra couple of hours. At 60p, not only was it the cheapest way to travel to Hsipaw, it was supposedly the most scenic. Having now been there and gotten the shirt, I can firmly agree. When I arrived at the station, at 7 o'clock in the morning, the station master gave me the choice of carriage I'd l...

I was pretty pagoda-d out by the time I left Bagan. I said goodbye to Ulrich, who when I left, was curled up in bed with suspected food poisoning. Rather him than me. Obviously I gave him a lot of sympathy, wished him well and promptly left the infected zone for my bus! It was roughly a five hour journey to Mandalay. I was half tempted to skip it all together, having heard stories from people who had been there, but it felt wrong skipping the former capital so de...

My first thoughts as I arrived in Bagan were of Ankor Wat in Cambodia. I'm still not sure whether it was the early morning, the stifling heat or the crumbling ruins that lined the roads that made me think of Ankor, maybe a combination of all three. Like Ankor, it's hard to believe Bagan and its pagodas aren't a wonder of the world. Bagan isn't even a UNESCO World heritage site, which is even harder to believe, although there is an ongoing dispute lead by the Burm...