$10 to the government before you even enter the town is how it begins. A Tuk Tuk to all the hotels in the town ended us in Gypsy Inn, no available rooms (yet), no sleep and no food we booked a boat around the lake for 8am! To the market good sir, and then the silver smiths, and stop off for the balancing fisherman and leg oars, say hello to the long necks, why not throw in an umbrellas factory, paper making let's see that too, one pagoda only please, then to the scarf makers, they make scarfs from lotuses don't you know! Iron works are worth a look in, then maybe see the floating villages with their floating farms, endless tomato plants, shall we end the day with a sunset in the middle of the lake too, why yes good sir we shall!

Well with a couple of days you need a lie in, some local cuisine and some boxing on telly. When your fresh you hire some bikes and take in the glory that is the "poverty" of Burma - beautiful bamboo stilt houses with chickens and vegetable gardens, kids on bikes and families swimming in the lake. It's the life all westerners dream of and it's here in spades, poverty? Please, this is life how it should be lived and happiness abounds. The poorest people in South East Asia? By our capitalist western standards yes, by the any normal persons standards they are the wealthiest people we've ever seen. The good life and nothing but.