So it seems my time in Myanmar is almost up. Boy it has gone quickly! It seems only yesterday that I was boarding my flight to Mandalay and tomorrow I am going to be taking a flight back to Bangkok where I will be joined by my wife and then we will have five days in Chiang Mai.

So I did the overnight bus thing from Nyaungshwe to Yangon, despite not really wanting to. It was a pretty comfy bus with the three seats per row and air conditioning turned up pretty cold. In fact I was wearing three layers and also gad a blanket. Apart from here in Yangon the nights have been cool which surprised me. Myanmar is much dryer than Thailand so I guess that’s why.
Yangon is a big city and the former capital. My hotel here – Agga Youth Hotel is simple but clean. Wifi a little better than elsewhere.
On my first day I went up to the Sky Bistro in the Sakura Towers for lunch and a good view if the place. Then I took the circle line train which makes its way around 37 miles of track in about three hours. It was an interesting journey ad I watched the life of the train. People with big sacks of who knows what. The guards collected the takings from each station as the train stopped and put it in a big green box. The landscape changed to farmland and back again as the sun set. Well hey, I like trains ok? It cost 20 cents.

View from the train (above), quail eggs for sale on the train  (below)

Today I went to one last Burmese pagoda. The Shwedagon Pagoda is the most revered perhaps in Myanmar. Huge, gold and reached by lifts going in the middle of the day is not recommended but that’s when I went. It’s very impressive as you might imagine with a small museum and dozens of smaller prayer halls and pagodas and countless images of Buddha. But boy, it was hot on the soles of the feet and I desperately wished I had the place to myself and didn’t have to share it with thousands of others.

I could have seen more temples or museums but after that I spent the rest of the afternoon watching a movie in air conditioned comfort. I’m templed out. But Myanmar you are a great place to visit. And now’s the time. So folks, what are you waiting for?
May the journey never end!