23/03/2014

Woke up to more tunes, and grabbed a fried rice brekky and some coffee to start us off. We then found a pick up which would take us to Indawgyi lake. We did a couple of laps of Hopin, picking everyone up, and more and more stuff got pilled into the back of the pick up truck. We sat above all the stuff on benches. The whole thing took ages and we were honestly speechless when thinking that was that, only to park somewhere else and somehow fit more stuff into the pack of this pickup. There was everything from massive bags of rice, craters of fish to bamboo strapped to the side of the car. It was like a giant game of tetris. At one point it started to rain so they hoyed a massive water proof cover over us as we waited. We eventually set off and held on for dear life as we two-ed and fro-ed towards our destination, all 25 of us on this pick up. We then reached a massive ditch full of muddy water so we all had to jump off as we struggled to make it through.

We eventually reached a checkpost and waited in a queue behind othewr vehicles for no apparent reason, nothing was happening and they guards wouldn't even tell us why. Having the sorest ass known to man due to the worst roads ever, the heat starting to ramp and having already been on the back for hours I was stating to get restless. Jonas and Ben jumped off and took photos of stuff to pass the time. Then the guard thought they had taken photos of them and told Ben to deleate them. Ben got really irate and stood his ground and refused to show him his phone. He mentioned this before, and he said in these situations you should never give sign of self doubt. He then went onto a massive protest and wanted to know which guard had apparently 'seen him' take them. Fair play to the guy. Some other tourists eventually rocked up, this time Russians, to which were surprised the guard even knew Russian.

We eventually got through and went over the WORST road ever. We had to cling on other wise we'd get launched off. My legs were getting mangled against the metal frame of the seats infront. It was agony.

We then stopped off an some random fair. It was amazing! There was so many stalls of great food to eat and drink, there was even a ferris wheel it was class. We got some awesome coconut dumplings.

Finally after 7 and half hours on the back of the pick up we reached Lonton, the small village next to the lake. We arrived to find only one guesthouse to which the Russians had beat us to it and was now full. There were loads of other adventure nuts there as well, including the young froggie couple from Mykathina as well as the Finnish dude from Yangon. A local lady called Marsha who spoke excellent English then said we could sleep at our house for $5 a night. Ended up working so much better as the house was amazing, a nice big wooden one by the side of the lake, and it was ours. Marsha was always working in her restaurant so we had the place to ourselves.

Me and Ben shared a room, this time it was only a double bed. On the night he told so many mad stories of his past. Honestly couldn't believe some of the things I was hearing at one point. This guy used to be a real hell raiser but the person who is now is completely different. Stories of being barred from every pub in town, fighting with his mates, trashing each others rooms, all types of scandals. The way he told them just added to it as well, I was f***ing decked it was absolutely hilarious. He then slowly got onto this on-and-off missus back home which he talked about for quite a while. It then occurred to me I was sharing a bed having pillow talk with an ex-heroin user and alcoholic, in Burma. The whole situation was barmy thinking about it haha.

24/03/2014

Chilled in the morning sun and we all chilled round in the garden reading our books. We then went to the pier and had a swim, but was there was too many reeds to enjoy it. We then got some food and after took a boat across the river to a golden Pagodo in the middle of the lake. They all get a bit samey after a while and it wasn't much. Again the locals got photos with us. We drove back and stopped in the middle of the lake, this time for a proper swim. On the night we all watched the videos he had recorded of us during the day for his video blog. We all took turns and sat in the chair and explained how we were finding Burma. We took turns wearing a Burmese hat for each of the recordings. Was funny watching them back.