Day 4 - got up and went for a 40 mins run at 6.45am. Lovely temperature, ran out into the countryside and ended up on an buffalo cart track, running through villages surrounded by sugar cane fields with buffalo pulling ploughs and the pulling carts full of cut cane. Beautiful with the sun coming up and the mist burning off. On the way back into town I passed a line of about 30 adult monks and young monks (who I have named monkettes), going off with their bowls to get their alms. Not sure they were used to a vest topped runner. In fact I think it's a pretty rare sight here.

I was really looking forward to a train ride this morning, but a reminder of the regime of Burma - all the trains for two days have been commandeered for the military to transport cadets to Mandalay. Disappointing but nothing we could do, so we had to go on a bus. I think the bus was a lot quicker so a bit of time filling. A stop at a cave with lots of Budhas - a bit underwhelming - an an experience going around in bare feet though. Then lunch and a stop at the train station. Looked like an English village station apart from the people hanging around ready to get on the train with boxes and baskets, and women with baskets of food to sell when the trains came in. Sure enough a train came in full of locals but also young soldiers. Very keen to chat in broken English - asking to have their photos taken - but taking photos of anything military is not advised. I'm not sure why we visited the station, maybe to remind us of home or to show us the military were really using the trains.

We are in Kalaw - at over 4000 ft and an area that used to be where all the top people had summer residences to escape the heat in colonial times. Therefore many of the buildings are replica Surrey type mansions - very surreal. As compensation for not being able to get the train we stopped at a Surrey mansion and had afternoon tea on the lawn. A beautiful house with lovely gardens with roses but also orchids and bamboo!

Another reminder of the regime is BBC news was taken off air yesterday- not sure why and all email accounts were inaccessible...

It is cold here at night though, about 5C - all the plants at the hotel get covered in plastic at night. I've been a bit chilly, just not used to it.

Day 5- Here they have 5 day markets where all the locals from the surrounding villages can come and sell their produce. They also get their post delivered. So at 7am in the morning we went to have a wander. All the produce looked wonderful and fresh but also lots of smelly dried fish, eels, BBQ'd eels, beautiful flowers and other strange things that I'm not sure what they were. The locals were mainly smiling women with thick coats and blankets wrapped around their heads and light yellow paste smeared on their cheeks and foreheads - this is supposed to protect from the sun but also a decoration. Most of the kids also run around with yellow cheeks.

The treck we then did was a moderately hard up hill for about an hour, and considering around the market I had two jumpers on - the layers were soon stripped off to a t shirt and shorts as it heated up to mid 30s once the sun and blue sky appeared. At the top, we had local tea, crispy snacks and delicious creamy avocado (probably the best I have ever tasted) and some of the women in the local village dressed me up in the local dress - so all the tour group took photos of me. A visit to the local primary school and then a lovely different route down to a very local cafe where we had lunch of avocado dip, wilted watercress and peanut salad, cauliflower, chicken curry and rice - all very tasty.

The schools here very much teach by rope learning - chanting out facts and not being allowed to question. English is taught and everyone goes to primary school for four years but few people in rural areas go on to secondary or high school let alone university. Due to the monks and monastries where many children spend at least a week if not a year as a monk (they can leave at any time), is why the literacy rate is about 90%. Qualifications are not recognized abroad and even for those that are well educated it is hard to get jobs so there is little motivation to go on to further education.