Our stay at the HInthar guest house wasn't the best we've had, but it served a purpose. It's almost like they took one giant big room and stuck up a load of thin walls to make rooms - which was fine, except for the great big gap they'd left at the top…so when they turned the lights in the corridor on at 5am, it made things a bit brighter! Not to mention, some people don't have a concept of walking without stamping their feet down…we were awake quite early. Never mind, our bus to Yangon was at 10.30 and as the showers didn't look particularly appealing, we went off in search of some breakfast - which we found next door, a huge plate of fried rice with an egg (runny yolk - yummy!). Until we saw our bus ticket and the expected arrival time, we'd thought we'd juts wing it again on the accommodation (we'd heard that Chinatown was the place for budget accommodation)…however, our bus was not due in until 7.30pm and we'd heard reports that it could take anything up to 2 hours to get into the city from the bus station (located only about 12km out of town)…and did not fancy a repeat of the last night! Thankfully, Katja who we'd met the day before had the sense to purchase a Myanmar sim card with data, so in the absence of any wifi anywhere near and guided by her recommendation of somewhere to stay, we managed to secure ourselves a few nights (hot showers and breakfast included - yay!).

Regardless of the state of the guesthouse, the owner was lovely (as we've come to realise, so are all Burmese people) and she walked us down to the bus stop, like a mother goose with her chicks trailing behind! We weren't sure what to expect from the bus, but I think we were pleasantly surprised - ok, it wasn't the shiny new modern one shown on the ticket, but it wasn't half bad! Once we'd managed to get our bags squeezed into the full undercarriage of the bus, we set off…slowly.

All in all, the 8 hours passed relatively painlessly…well, once I'd blocked out the racket coming from the tv at the front (poor James got sucked into some Burmese soap drama!). The views were pretty good and I was surprised to see how flat it was. Quite amusingly, there were seats that folded out in the aisle of the bus - a good way to fit more people in, although, not so good for the person at the back wanting to get out. Anyway, James had a young lad asleep on his shoulder for most of the journey!! We combined with another couple and haggled for a taxi - although the price was soon pushed up when he realised that we wanted to go to 2 different places - and despite James protesting that they were quite close to each other (which, unfortunately they weren't, but good try!) we ended up paying basically the starting price anyway (although at 10,000Kyat per couple - about £5, it wasn't too bad!). Unfortunately, although we'd booked the guest house, I hadn't thought to look at where it was…but randomly, our driver seemed to know that we were staying at the Agga guest house - or maybe it's just a common one - either way, it worked for us! Sure enough, it took almost 2 hours to get to our guesthouse…traffic in Yangon is AWFUL! Already glad that we've booked an airport hotel for the night before we fly back to Bangkok.

The guesthouse was ok, from the booking we'd been expecting a twin room with bunk beds, but ended up in a small box room with 2 beds end to end and very little space for our stuff. No matter though, it was only for a few nights. Hungry we went in search of dinner, again, not sure what to expect - seemed that unlike in Thailand where every stall had seating, here only a few did so we ended up with a few bags of different curry, a huge portion of rice and randomly a big container of fresh corn. Takeaway it was!

The lonely planet guide books have quite useful suggestions for walks around certain areas, so the next day, we followed the walk around the old colonial area - lovely old buildings, although most of them needing quite a bit of repair now. Yangon felt a little bit like India but on a slightly quieter and less mental scale and was generally quite nice to wander around. Tea shops seem to be the thing in Myanmar, so we started our walk at a tea shop (think the sugar propelled us round!) and then meandered through the downtown area around the Sule Pagoda - which is apparently the centre point of Yangon. Half way through the walk, we arrived at the Strand Hotel, which was renovated a few years back to bring it back up to standard. This is another of those iconic hotels from around the British rule; the Taj in Mumbai, Raffles in Singapore (in fact it was owned by the same people as Raffles)…as we'd already visited the Taj, and as James's Dad used to stay here on business, we couldn't really turn down the opportunity for a drink. It was pretty swanky in there…maybe one day when we're old and have made our money (hahaha!) we will come back and stay…

Anyway, back to the real world. We were planning on going to the main sight in Yangon that evening for sunset - the Shwedagon Pagoda, the biggest golden monument in the world (we saw it from the taxi the previous evening and it was breath taking!) so headed back for a bit of a rest as it was quite a walk up there. Randomly on the way back we bumped into a guy we'd met in Goa (he isn't even travelling! He'd been in Goa seeing his brother before going to Delhi with work…then going back to England. And here he was on holiday in Myanmar!). Although we tried to arrange a beer later that day, it didn't work out, but still it was random to bump into someone we actually knew.

We had hoped to be up at the Pagoda while it was still light to then watch the sunset, however we took a little longer mobilising ourselves and ended up there in the dark - but it was still beautiful - even if it did stretch my night time picture taking capabilities! It's quite a big complex and there were so many people around, but the atmosphere up there was still so peaceful and relaxed. We tried to get our monies worth (having paid 8,000 Kyat each to get in), so we ambled around twice, but it was getting late and we were getting hungry (also, James was getting bored of me trying to take pictures!), so reluctantly we left - it was a shame we didn't get up there in daylight - something we'd do next time we visit Yangon I think. The walk home seemed to take forever and we were both pretty hangry by the time we got back…it had been a very long day of walking!

As we'd managed to do most of what we wanted to do in the city, we decided to book the night bus for the next evening. It left Yangon at 8.30pm and we had to be there half an hour before…our guesthouse suggested that, due to traffic, we leave at 4.30pm…4 hours before our bus?! We're glad we listened to them though, it took almost 2 hours to get there, but at least it meant we weren't rushing. Before we'd left, we managed to catch up with Katja again for lunch (she'd arrived back in Yangon the night before), she was heading to India next, so we were able to share our experiences and recount some of our adventures!

[Point to note - we had taken some dollars with us to pay for guesthouses etc but most places were happy to take Kyat. So we changed up one of our $100 bills into local instead of going to the ATM - we got a very good exchange rate on this and only lost a few pounds against the official exchange rate.]

Ooo, our first night bus! We'd listened to some advice and booked on the VIP bus (sounds fancy, but was only a couple of pounds more), and parts of it were worth it - firstly, they didn't have any music or movies playing loudly until late at night as most reports had said, the seats were all separate (only 3 in a row) and there was a handy little foot rest…but, you couldn't put the seats back too far unless you wanted to by lying on the person behind you, the seats were quite narrow even though there was more room around it…and it was cold! The normal overnight buses, although the seats were together, looked like there was a bit more room to curl up and go to sleep in. It was fine though and we slept where we could - when we were not being kicked off the bus for a loo break! There was a couple at one stop who'd left their young daughter on the bus asleep and gone for a comfort break, however when they got back, they found that the drivers had locked the bus up - sensible I guess - luckily though there were a few other people on the bus still…although the drivers nowhere to be seen. Obviously the little girl had woken up pretty scared and eventually they managed to open the driver's window and hand her out to her parents - word to the wise - don't leave sleeping babies on buses unattended!

Finally we pulled into Bagan at 5am…we'd followed advice again and booked our first night (as not many are open at that time of the morning!) and after bartering on a taxi, paying the entrance fee to Bagan ($20 each!) we arrived bleary eyed hoping to check in and rest our heads for a while - unfortunately though, we couldn't check in till 9…but we were kindly pointed to a tea shop round the corner! Unbearably sweet tea and deep fried snacks for breakfast is not something I could get used to - but it did the trick and soon we were wandering through Bagan while the sun rose slowly. We took in our first sights and made plans for the next few days. Bagan had a nice feel to it, quite relaxed - but super dusty! Our plan for the rest of the day was to nap and then find somewhere cheaper to stay - both of which we succeeded with. Overnight travel is good as you don't waste a whole day, but if you don't sleep well, it just means that the next day is a non-starter…still trying to work out what's better in the long run. That evening we were no use to anyone or to do anything, we had a tv in our room playing English movies, so chilled out, watched a few rubbish movies and had a pot noodle in bed - it was worth it though, sometimes just having a bit of normality is needed!

Bagan is vast and there was no way we could hope to see it all, so we earmarked a few areas to tackle each day. Once we'd moved to our cheaper guesthouse down the road (A1 guesthouse - closer to the town and food options!) we hired a couple of push bikes and set off to explore Old Bagan - for once they were pretty decent bikes as well! We had to be careful and watch out for snakes though, especially when going off road - James had done his research and there were some pretty dangerous snakes around. It was quite good fun on the bikes being able to zip off down little tracks to pagodas and temples (not the same thing, as we learned later) and the view from the tops were amazing! You can see why they charge what they charge to take a balloon ride across the area at sunrise (only a cool $320…EACH!). We stopped into a little 'Canteen' for lunch and were quickly joined by the owners' son, Jojo who is 18 and studying English at university so that he can become a tour guide! He was so sweet, we sat chatting with him for ages so that he could practice his already good English and it also gave us a chance to pick up and practice some more Burmese words and phrases. He also taught us the difference between temples and pagodas - the latter are round and you cannot go in them, whereas the former are square…and you can go in them - simple when you know! It was quite a heart-warming few hours and we set off feeling pretty good about ourselves and life! The next day, we were going a bit further so rented an e-bike - foreigners are not allowed to rent any motorised vehicles in Bagan (we can see why - we've seen the injuries travellers pick up from motorbike/moped accidents elsewhere, with the amount of deep sand around here, it's just asking for trouble), these were not quite as comfortable as the push bikes, but at least meant we could go a bit farther without tiring ourselves out too much! By half way through the second day, we were beginning to get a bit temple/pagoda fatigued…having seen so many Wats in Thailand, and more Buddha statues that I can count, we needed a break as we began to be a bit unappreciative of the area we were in. We did the main ones though and they were spectacular, climbing up one was pretty terrifying as the steps were almost vertical, but worth it for the views. At least we didn't bump into any snakes along the way (although we did see what looked like a fresh trail, but thankfully not the owner!).

Time to move on again, we only had just over a week left before our flight back to Bangkok so we booked our bus to Mandalay for the next day. That evening, we treated ourselves at the Italian restaurant next door - boasting an Italian trained chef…let me know if you ever get an 8 layer lasagne in Italy! It was nice though, and a welcome break from the Burmese curries which are literally swimming in oil!! We were also celebrating another anniversary - 7 months since our epic adventure began (counting from the beginning of Europe) - can't believe how quickly time has gone!!

Oops, had intended to make this a short entry…signing off now J