Tonight is my last night in Myanmar; I'm currently in a hostel in Yangon getting ready for my flight to Indonesia tomorrow. In the dorm next door is a Buddhist monk and a nun - this pretty much sums up what Myanmar is like. Unusual, to say the least.

Myanmar has been everything I hoped for this trip. After the hyper-touristy Thailand it was amazing to arrive in Mandalay and not see another Westerner for days. Our first hotel was down a little dirt-road next to a busy onion market. Fruit, veg and spices were piled high outside wooden stalls; bikes with sidecars for passengers trundled by; women carried huge baskets balanced on their heads. It's a different world.

The locals are even more interested in us than we are in them - everyone stares at you here, but as soon as you catch their eye they'll grin and say mingalaba! Where are you from? Where are you going? I've never met such friendly people in my life. Everyone wants to speak to you and help you find wherever you're looking for; it's so nice to be somewhere where the local people aren't sick of tourists! (Yet - this gem of a country surely can't stay hidden for long.)

On our first day we travelled to Amarapura just outside Mandalay to see U Bein Bridge, the longest wooden bridge in the world, over Lake Taungthaman. It was incredibly long (nearly a mile) and incredibly rickety. A guy stopped and asked me to 'take a photo' - assuming he meant take a photo of him I said sure and went to take his camera, but instead he handed it to his friend and put his arm around me to pose! Isabel had to walk away because she was laughing so hard. He was the first of several people who wanted their photo taken with me… pale skin and curly hair are apparently all it takes to make you famous here.

The next day we climbed Mandalay Hill (barefoot - no shoulders, knees or shoes allowed!) to get to the temple at the top - unfortunately our vision of a peaceful evening watching the sun set over the city was ruined when I got something stuck in my foot… and in the process of trying to get it out, ripped a massive hole in my trousers. I was forced to limp all the way back down using my scarf as a skirt and trying not to flash the monks.

After two days in Mandalay we caught the bus to Bagan to see the temples there - there's over a thousand of them scattered across a huge flat plain as far as the eye can see; it's beautiful and haunting. From there we bussed to Kalaw, a little village in the mountains, having heard good things about the three-day hike from there to Inle Lake. After one night in a decrepit hotel there and some delicious Nepali food we left at 7am the next day with our guide, Sunny, two English girls on their gap year and a Dutch girl.

The first two days of the hike were incredible - it barely rained even though it's rainy season (although when it did we got absolutely covered in mud) and the scenery hiking across the mountains was unbelievable. It actually looked a bit like Scotland, with the rolling hills and valleys - until you zoomed in a little to see the palm trees, rice fields and weird bugs. We hiked for six hours the first day and slept that night on mattresses on the floor of a one-room bamboo hut, with only a small partition between us and the villager who lived there. The second night we hiked seven hours and slept in a monastery with some other hikers… and a whole bunch of Buddhist monks. Amazing. The third day we hiked five hours and then took a boat across Inle Lake to where we were staying. Sadly I didn't see much of Inle since the weather was bad and I wasn't well, but the scenery on the hike was more than enough to make up for it - it's been my favourite thing we've done so far.

After a couple of nights at Inle we decided to catch the train to Yangon - it was meant to be 30 hours, but we'd heard the scenery during the day was amazing and we fancied a break from buses. We set off at 8am in the most run-down looking train you can imagine - it looked like a once-decent train that had been abandoned for 30 years and left to rust. The seats were stained, everything was dirty… and did I mention that the train (and everyone on it) literally bounces up and down for the entire journey? I think I nearly gave a monk a heart attack when I flew up out of my seat at one point (although I realised about twenty hours in that my seat was actually broken and a nice man moved me to a better one, where I bounced up and down for the remainder of the trip with slightly more dignity.)

The train also broke down an hour into the journey, rounding our 30 hour trip up to 40 hours. You can imagine our delight. By the end of it Isabel and I had each read a whole book, played every card and word game known to man, mastered the art of sleeping while being flung about, and essentially gone delirious. It was definitely an experience and I'm glad we did it but seriously… forty hours. Forty. I don't know how we did it.

Since then we've spent three days in Yangon, visiting Bogyoke Aung San market, Shwedagon Pagoda (which is the closest thing I can imagine to being in heaven on Earth) and eating ice-cream in the park. Myanmar has been amazing but it'll be nice to go somewhere where I can go outside without being stared at by everyone in a 30 metre radius. Indonesia here we come!