We left Mandalay around 8ish by bus to Kalaw an 8 hour trip away. There was several stops along the way with the first being U Bein Bridge, just outside of Mandalay. The bridge spans 1300 yards across Taungthaman Lake and isn't really fit for vehicles but you can walk across it and watch the numerous fishing boats below throwing their nets out to catch fish for the nearby markets.

The trip to Kalaw went through lots of rural Myanmar before taking the windy roads into the Burmese hills. The roads weren't the best and were extremely uneven so not for those that suffer travel sickness, but even so the scenery and views were breathtaking. As a lot of the cars are right hand steering and they also drive on the right hand side the driver had a mate who hung outside of the door to let him know if there were any vehicles coming the opposite way so to avoid collision...I thought it was quite a unique and nifty idea till I realised the driver's apprentice was completely off his face on betlenut.
The driver did stop off for a photo opportunity but it was facing the sun so it was pretty pointless really...but will get plenty of good photo opportunities tomorrow on the trek.

The one thing I have noticed across Asia but it has come more to my awareness in Burma is the amount of stray dogs. I have noticed it before in other SE Asia countries but it just seems to be standing out here. Dogs just wander the streets, with no obvious owner, and then you'll see young children amongst them, it's hard to not think that the kids will not be attacked. Back home we would have them on a lead, but then again the dog would be a completely different type of animal to what is out here. The other thing is, with the amount of dogs and the lack of owners I've noticed that there is no dog mess anywhere so either the dogs know where to go discretely or someone is cleaning it up.

Kalaw is a small town and doesn't have huge amount of things to do, most people come here to do trekking and visit the villages up in the hills that surround the town. The one thing that we did discover was a small bar called "hi bar", it was tiny and could barely fit 10 people in it, it's that small that when someone goes to the toilet you could hand them a beer whilst they are on the toilet. I did point out to people that the toilet door was made of coloured glass so you could see the shadow of someone using the toilet.

It was another 8:30 start as today we were going to do a trek to visit two villages in the hills surrounding Kalaw. It was really cold in the morning so I did the usual thing of putting plenty off layers on only to take them off at 10am when it was starting to get really warm. The scenery was stunning as we walked through the hills past orange plantations. The first villages that we visited were Palaung people, the second village, which is where we ate, was Taung Yo people. Most of the villages don't have running water and electricity and live off the land by farming, I'm always fascinated by people that live like this. The trek took most of the day with stops for lunch and breaks. The guide said it was 18km in length my gps watch got just over 13km, I told him that was probably the length as I thought he would be interested and he could use it for his future walks. He was so apologetic as I think he thought I was disappointed in the distance he had given me. I told him not to worry there's no need to apologise...but it is like that here sometimes they will apologise upfront before they've even spoken...

Probably had my best night in Myanmar tonight. It started off with a decent meal in Uncle Sam's resteraunt. I had beef curry for the second night on the row at the same resteraunt but because I was starting regain appetite i also had chocolate pancakes. I couldn't finish the pancakes so they gave me a doggy bag to take home, so I'll be having pancakes for breakfast tomorrow.
After dinner it has to be a compulsory return to the Hi bar. I ordered the usual, rum sour with sugar and no ice (I've been ill so I wasn't going to tempt fate again) but this time I noticed that the serviettes weren't a nice piece of folded cloth but were actual toilet paper...I thought I could have done with that when I was in Bagan. The bar man was ever so pleasing to see us, he dished out the free bar peanuts and made sure that every peanut had seen the palms of his hands before dishing them in the bowls...I made sure that I didn't eat any. The bar also had a band playing, well I say a band, it was 2 guys with a guitar playing all the popular Western songs, a bit of Ronan Keaton and Cat Stevens but in Burmese, to be honest to my untrained ear in popular music it sounded better in Burmese than it does in English. The night ended where I was given a marker pen by the owner of the bar to write a message on a single brick within the wall of the Hi bar...I couldn't think of anything inspirational so I thought that Uncle Sam's deserves some free advertisement and wrote "Uncle Sam's resteraunt is the best resteraunt in Myanmar Nokesy"...it is on a brick my head height on the left as you enter the bar so if happen to pass the Hi bar in Myanmar have a look out for it.

One thing in the Hi bar that did have a lot of empathy and had a nice story behind it was the cherished empty whiskey box that an Irish guy had left behind. The story behind it was an Irish guy had visited the bar in 2003 and wanted to tip the band but they declined so instead they said donate the whiskey box and pay some money into and they would give the money to the local hospital (health centre). The box is still there, it has seen better days mind you, and they are still donating to the local hospital. Last month they gave 500,000 cyat which is just over £300, but when you consider an X-ray cost £3 in this country that is a lot of money. The Irish guy that donated the box returned to the Hi bar Myanmar in 2012 and was overwhelmed that they were still donating to the hospital using the same box, I thought that this was pretty cool thing and something that is so evident and stands out a lot in poorer countries such as Myanmar.

We leave today to make our way over to inle lake, the final part of the trip before making our way back to Yangon. I'll be seeing the new year in at inle lake and I think we have a Burmese wine tastings session planned that day too so that should be a new taste sensation. If the wine is like the Mandalay rum or whiskey it's going to be pretty grim. I also need to step up the pace abit as well as I've been asleep every night for 10pm so I'm not sure if I'll be able to make the big countdown.