All is going well and we're having a great adventure here in Myanmar. Day 4 is now complete, and just one 1/2 day remains, here in Mandalay. We left our hotel in the small town of Shwebo, on our way to Kyaut Myaung. I've been looking forward to a return trip to this very small village, as my son, Bobby, and I have fond memories of our brief visit there 3 years ago. Kyaut Myaung's sole economy is based on pottery, and they transport the pottery down river...

We're just past the small village of Myitnaban, about 20 miles from our destination for the evening of Shwebo, when Connor's motorbike gets a flat tire. Stranded and alone in a foreign country ? Well, no, but it sounds more interesting. We all pull over, regroup, and Sam takes the injured motorbike back to Myitnaban to find a repair shop. In the meanwhile, the 3 of us are roadside, hanging out under a tree away from the sun as much as possible. Trucks an...

NOTE: It doesn't appear that the notification went out 2 days ago for my previous blog story "Fish like stinky feet". If you didn't read it yet, just click on the yellow/orange "Blog" button above, and you can see all of the blog stories. There are about 80 new photos to view. Minga-la-ba ! Roughly translated as "auspiciousness to you", it is widely used as their greeting -- but they also love saying "HALLO !", with a big smile of course. We are no...

Minga-la-ba from Mandalay, Myanmar (also known as Burma). With a short and pleasant flight from Chiang Mai, we arrived in Mandalay late afternoon for our next phase of the journey - a 5 day motorcycle trek through several regions of Myanmar. Much more to come, but first, a little about our last couple days in Chiang Mai: After recovering from the tedious silversmithing work and the pretzel contortion and UFC tap out at the Thai massage, we hit the streets fo...