The Road To Mandalay

It was a  brief stay back in Bangkok at the very odd Honey Hotel, where breakfast was included but bizarrely just for one of us. Perhaps they weren’t used to a married couple staying there as it was mostly full of 50-something, single, fat, western blokes looking for a special Thai massage or a wife. The free tourist magazine was interesting as you could easily book a three night stay on a tropical island or just settle for a ladyboy.

Cheap feast on the streets of Rangoon

We had an early morning start with a march through the hectic streets of Bangkok laden with backpacks, squeezed onto the  rush hour skytrain and finally a taxi to the airport for our flight to Burma. Strangely there’s a half hour time difference between Thailand and Burma.
 

We arrived at our utterly unremarkable hotel in the capital city of Yangon, formerly Rangoon, a chaotic city compared with the efficient organised chaos of Bangkok. Despite the country being open once again to tourists, they obviously still receive very few as most pairs of eyes were firmly fixed on us with either a continued piercing  stare or fits of giggling. Odd really, coming from the men and women who both wear skirts.

However we dived straight in with a street corner feast of egg curry and fried rice accompanied by about six other dishes that we didn’t order whilst  sat on a children’s size plastic table and chairs, but still the whole thing came to a little over £1.50.
 

Travelling around independently here is virtually impossible  so we decided to let Exodus take the strain on this one as we’re more than happy to have someone tell us where to go, what to eat and when to breathe for a change. They’re an English tour company who specialise in organised tours and the only drawback is our social skills have been somewhat under used for the past six months but on Sunday afternoon we meet up with a group of 16 others from England who will be our best friends for two weeks.

With our new buddies in tow we'll set off around this fascinating country to explore Pagan with its 4000 temples, the evocatively named Mandalay and Inle Lake, home to the famous leg-rowing fisherman.