I left Koh Tao, having spent almost a week there, feeling refreshed and recharged. It was nice not having to repack my bag every couple of days and I didn't miss the lengthy bus journeys however I was definitely ready to start travelling again. Thailand felt more like a holiday than backpacking. It's well prepared for tourists which makes everything so accessible. It was while I was lounging around on the beach between dives that I doubted Myanmar would be quite as easy so I made sure I took full advantage of my mini holiday break.
Many of the preconceptions I had made before coming to Myanmar, mainly from things I had read or from what people had told me, fortunately haven't become reality. For example in the lonely planet it mentions there aren't any cash machines here and that people only accept pristine American dollars. Luckily for me, there are plenty of ATM's here. I made a slight c*** up in Bangkok and managed to disable my cards until I reached Burma. I scraped up all the money I could find, from my pockets and the bottom of my bags, and changed it into the neatest and best dollars in Thailand. In total, it was meagre $11. With that I had dinner to go, two taxi fares to go and a hotel to find. I think I could have just about survived the night on $11 but not much longer. Thankfully, there was a cash machine ready and waiting for me at the airport, panic averted.

It was in the departure lounge in Bangkok that I met a German named Ulrich. It was his first time in Burma as well so we sat, over coffee, discussing the stories we had been told and the possible routes we had planned.
Despite a minor delay at the airport and the minimal leg room on the plane, the flight was generally ok considering it was with Air Asia. The Asian equivalent of EasyJet. Just as we were landing into a rainy Yangon, the differences between it and Bangkok, where I had left, were immediately noticeable. The towering cityscapes of the Thai capital were a stark contrast to the flooded rice paddies that surrounded the runway in Yangon. Once we had landed and got through a surprisingly easy immigration, Ulrich and I shared a taxi into the city. He insisted we went to a the Pickled Tea Hostel, that he was recommended by a friend. I hadn't booked anywhere and if it saved on a taxi fare then the Pickled Tea Hostel it was. In all fairness, it is really nice, probably the best I've stayed in but it's also a budget-breaking £12 a night. I knew the accommodation in Myanmar could be expensive but at this rate I'm going to have to sell a kidney. I'll just have to keep trying to convince myself that it is a once a lifetime trip.
In spite of my best efforts, I can't imagine this will be a once in a lifetime trip. My first few days in Burma have been great and I can half sense that two and a bit weeks isn't going to be long enough. It isn't like any other place I have been before and by the look on the locals' faces, they don't see many westerners here. Despite the slightly bewildered faces, the people here are the friendliest that I've met- their smiles are one of the ways in which I will remember Yangon.

As is often the case, the first bit of the city I explored was the market. It's a good way to get a feel for a place, also to try and get used to yet another currency- it's Kyat here and takes approximately 2000 to make a £1. The markets are a permanent feature set within old colonial warehouses. The stalls are crammed with everything from clothes, antiques, jewellers, black-market chemists and obviously my particular favourite, the food halls. I can't say I put up much resistance when the stall owners insisted I try the different things they had on offer. I hadn't seen most of it before but it seemed edible and it was all very tasty. The food market lead onto the street food stalls which serves up some amazing food that equals the best. The distinct Indian influence means there is an endless array of curries, ranging in different spiciness and buckets of rice to go around.
On a full stomach, what better way to help the food go down than a three hour round trip on the cities' metro line. An overground, diesel driven train that circles it's way around the city centre into the suburbs and back again. It was a slow and bumpy ride but it was fascinating to see how quickly the roads turned to dirt tracks and the tower blocks turned into corrugated-iron shacks. If this is the capital, I can't wait to see the smaller towns.
Together with the markets and the train, obviously this is Asia and there are hundreds of temples, stupas and shrines to visit. Although they are all nice to see, there are just so many that, after a while, they all tend to merge into one. Ulrich and I have named it temple-bashing, i.e finding a temple, paying our money, taking a quick photo and moving onto the next. Who said the youth of today aren't cultural?!

I've managed to book a bus to the next town, which is an overnight 13 hour journey to Bagan- famed for the three or four thousand pagodas dotted across the undulating jungle. To travel between places in Burma has, so far, proved rather difficult and I'm pretty sure it will only get harder. Along with the travel, wifi is particularly hard to find so I can't promise when I will be able to publish the next update. With little to no wifi, photos will be even harder to post online so they may have to wait a couple of weeks until I'm home.