Sitting in the BA lounge, having my first wave of apathy for 6 weeks. I was going to be industrious and reel off our favourite days, moments, etc along with recommendations for travel that have come to light on a result of this trip, but, it will have to wait until Hopwood. Highlight of the lounge, apart from having a shower and putting on my winter clothes was watching Liverpool's demolition of Swansea on Robbie Fowler's laptop and discussing tactics with him. O...

We are time travellers, it's not that Laos was backward, rather that now we are in Thailand, the year is 2556, which would make me 600! This is because Thailand lives according to the Buddhist calendar. Apologies for the picture but, when we got to the hotel, we were peckish and they do produce an outstanding English afternoon tea, hence, the photographic evidence! We are staying at The Chedi, one of the GHM chain which we've enjoyed very much in the past in ...

There is a derisory joke in Indochina about the Laotians, namely, the Vietnamese plant rice and tend it, the Cambodians watch it grow and the Laotians listen to it grow. We are expecting a quiet time! We hub through Yangon, for a four hour layover, visiting places we missed a week ago and getting some passport photos, before flying to Bangkok, for an overnight stay, our second visit, of three, headed for Luang Prabang, which has to be my favourite pronunciation...

Update from UNESCO, they didn't consider Old Bagan because they did not like the way the temples were being restored. Given that they gave a grant of $1m to restore 3,200 of them, you'd have to question their commitment! We suffer our first delay as a result of fog shutting Yangon airport which is where our connection is coming from. However, with nothing booked but R&R, who cares that it's in an airport terminal with no facilities! We've started dreaming of ...

Mingalabar! Yep, welcome in Burmese, quite easy to remember! We are actually in Old Bagan, a hours flight north of Yangon. There were over 4000 Buddhist temples dotting the landscape but, a major earthquake in 1975 reduced that number to 3200. Why old? The reason is that the "Generals" who run the country, decided to make the area an archeological zone to encourage tourism. In the process, they displaced 5,000 people who received a plot of land in "New Bagan", no...