Took a long 7 hour 160mile bus drive along 'The Road to Mandalay', but actually fascinating views so went reasonably quickly. Mandalay is Burma's cultural capital and the last royal capital of the Burmese kingdom. Lots of monastries, craftworkshops and temple topped Mandalay hill but also very noisy and bustling with scooters, bicycles, laden trucks everywhere. (Yangon had no scooters as they were banned apparently because one of the generals sons was killed by o...

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...

Day One, Two & Three of my tour of Burma. I arrived in Yangon after a very tight connection between Koh Samui and Bangkok, but very efficiently Bangkok Airways had someone waiting at the gate to escort me to the international gate for my Burma connection through some back routes so I made the flight easily. But my luggage didn't. I had already worked out the connection was tight so had packed emergency clothes in my hand luggage so it was fine. Arrival in ...

Thought I'd write up the food I have today (mainly for my benefit!). There are a few photos to remind me! Breakfast: Earl Grey tea Carrot juice Buckwheat pancake Pumpkin dip Blanched asparagus and broccoli Tomato salsa Poached egg Plate of fresh fruit: pineapple, mango, paw paw Organic yogurt sprinkled with pumpkin, flax and sunflower seeds Lunch: Fresh coconut drink Probiotic smoothie made of pumpkin seed milk, papaya, ginger juice and lime Green p...

Ok so I've changed my mind! A fantastic place with some really lovely people just a little moneyfied which I haven't been used to (is moneyfied a made up word?). About 50% are single which is great. Essentially everyone is off doing exercise, treatments, relaxing on the beach during the day - eating the most amazing delicious healthy food and then over dinner there is a group of us who all get together and chat over what we've been doing normally with a lot of la...