Day 198 - We were awoken with shouts of 'Bangkok, Bangkok'. We were so tired and very stiff and the second we stepped off we were hassled by taxi drivers, we heard a few negotiating prices refusing to turn their meters on so we walked on down the road and flagged one down. He took us to the airport with his meter on. We got there at 6:30am and we were 2 hours early for check-in. Lloyd fell asleep straight away since he got barely any sleep on the bus and I read my book. We were finally able to check in and we were starving, we pulled together the last of our money and had just enough for 2 McDonald's breakfast's, a bit of western food - just what we needed. Our flight to Yangon was only an hour and was on time, on the other end a driver from our hotel was waiting for us. He told us to change our Dollar's in the airport, this was a total surprise to us. We had read over and over again 'NOT' to change money in the airport as the exchange rate was so bad and that we must do it on the black market. Our guy ensured us this was the best rate in town and when we checked it we were pretty convinced at the rate, this just shows how much and how fast Myanmar is changing for tourists. With our massssive wad of Myanmar Kyat we headed to our hotel, our drive through the city was fab, we got to see the first glimpses at the untouched country. On every corner were massive gold temples and stupas. Just along the road we witnessed our first crash, right in front of us, nobody was hurt and the guys just got out of their cars and looked at the damage no kicking or screaming like you see in England. We arrived at the hotel and it was OK, bit grubby but we didn't expect much else, we dropped our bags and headed straight out. On the first corner was a small restaurant so we stopped, no-one spoke any English so we just pointed at the pan off bubbling soup hoping it would come with noodles, it did and it had boiled egg and fried fish and and was so delicious. We later read what we had ate was 'Mohinga' a traditional Burmease meal. After our lovely meal we walked along the main street which was full of people selling food on the side of the street with tiny chairs and tables everywhere. the ground was totally uneven with paving stones jutting out everywhere and the place was so busy it was like an obstaclecourse. We walked to Shwedagon Paya which took about an hour. It was magnificent. According to legend, the Shwedagon Pagoda has existed for more than 2,600 years, making it the oldest historical pagoda in Burma and in the world. The place had lots of palaces and side temples to pray in and the whole thing was covered in gold leaf with the top spire encrusted in precious stones! We sat until sunset watching the colours change as the sun shone on it and watching the hundreds of people walking around and praying. Although it was dark we decided to walk back also as we didn't know what bus to get and heard the taxis were quite expensive within the city. What made life slighlty more difficult was the electricity situation in Myanmar, meaning you dont always get it. This means they have very, very infrequent street lights so we were kept on our toes whilst trying to avoid the paving stone-hurdles. Back in the centre we found an area of seats half on the road half on the pavement so sat down for some food. There seemed to be about 20 pots of food and we were ushered to pick one, We picked beef and sat down. There was free tea on the table which was great and we were soon greeted with rice our little pot of beef stew, pickles and veg, 'Myanmar food' they called it.

Day 199 - We were up nice and early for our free breakfast which was lovely coffee/tea, toast, butter and jam and eggs (although you cant but jam and eggs on your toast) then banana and papaya, we were stuffed. We tried to book our bus tickets to the golden rock from our hostel but they were sold out and were told to walk to the bus station. So on we went for the 40 min walk, we had heard mixed reviews about the golden rock. A lot of people told us it was a long way to go just to see a painted rock and was not worth the 2-3 days to go see it but we decided to check the bus timetables just in case When we got there we realised the bus was a lot more than we expected and were still unsure. So we took some initiative and decided as we had to come back to Yangon for our flight out if we had time we would do it at the end of our trip. With that decided we then went to 'American Vision' Lloyd being Lloyd had managed to leave his glasses in Bangkok airport and being almost blind without them they needed to be replaced. Luckily he had done something right and had brought his lens prescription with him which saved us the cost of an eye-test. The Optician was very helpful and after half an hour of trying on the same 3 frames he finally settled on a pair he deemed 'wearable until he gets home'. Back at the hostel we booked our bus tickets to Bagan now we were sure on our route, we did some research and caught up with a few things. We headed back out before sunset and went to Botatung Paya, this temple was on the river front. This time we decided not to pay the overpriced tourist fee and admired it from the outside which was enough. We walked along the river front and it was great to see all the locals out talking, eating and playing football we were so happy to be there. We picked up some lovely fried goodies; samosas, spring rolls and bits, Lloyd got a beer and I got a milo and feasted back at the hotel whilst I skyped home.

Day 200 - We woke up at 9am we felt so tired but there was more of Yangon to see. After breakfast we headed out to do a big walk of the city. We passed the court halls, port buildings, gardens and the Sule Paya which is another temple but in the middle of a roundabout. We stopped for tea and Milo and pastries at a traditional teahouse which was really nice, our table faced the street so it was nice to people watch. We walked in and out streets enjoying the bustling markets around us and the smell of food cooking. As we were off to Bagan next where there are hundreds of temples I invested in a scarf/skirt, all the women wear brightly patterns skirts and they come in very handy at the temples. All the men also wear skirts in Myanmar they are called 'Longhi' so we had a little look around for Lloyd but he decided he wasn't that bothered. We had a look at a few more Buddhist Hindu temples finishing at the Bogyoke Aung San market and to our horror we found it closed, this was the biggest market in Myanmar and it had gone from being open Tue-Sun to just Thursday- Devastated. We walked along and picked up Lloyd's glasses as we were close and walked along the street markets back to the hostel. We stopped off on the way for another bowl of the delicious Mohinga before our night bus to Bagan. On the bus we tried to sleep, we stopped of at an extremely busy service station with lots of street stalls, here we tried Athoke 'hand mixed salad' and it was lovely. The rest of the bus ride was very bumpy, it was hard to sleep.