You know you are in Asia when you open the curtains and see 30 monks processing across the street early on a Sunday morning! I have to pinch myself to realize that this is not a two week holiday but my home for the next six months.

This has been a fabulous day of walking around downtown Yangon and getting a ferry boat across the river to a rural village community. There are few tourists at this time of year and I like being the only westerner on the ferry and on the other side of the river in Dala township. People are curious about 'foreigners' and it's only the past few years that tourists have been allowed into the country.

But first things first. I met my guide outside the old city hall near the impressive Sule pagoda. This part of the city is full of old colonial buildings including the old post office, Strand Hotel (currently being refurbished) and the British embassy. They were built at the beginning of the 20th century but to put them into context, the pagodas have been here for 2,500 years!

The crowded ferry boat takes me to another world, of old Asia with people living in wooden shacks alongside the river or in fields and pathways. The river rises twice a day which affects the level of the floors in the houses and there are some signs of tsunami damage from a decade ago.

It is a rural village community with schools, markets, pagodas and mosques. Life here must be challenging but people seem to find a way of getting by and you get the strong sense of 'community spirit' The fishermen tend to their boats, women sew garments on tables in the streets and there are many stray dogs in all parts of the village.

From the riverside, I look across to the changing skyline of downtown Yangon. Soon there will be a vast number of high rise buildings which will make the 'other side of the river' seem even more different.