Hello Burma nice to..... BLEURGH!

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So we flew back through half an hour on the international timezones (yup Burma is one of those country's - enough umph to demand their own timezone but they only get half an hours worth) and landed after what my watch now showed as a 15 minute flight.......confused yet?

Yangon airport was nice enough and what was even nicer was the line of hotel staff from various ones waiting to take those with and without bookings to a bed and shower. We were in the former category and I got to the live the dream and see my name being held up on a board at the arrivals

We opted for one called Ocean Inn as it wasn't quite as far out of town as the guidebooks pick. We jumped in a minibus with a few other people and without really doing anything soon ended up in a bed. Once in bed we soon found another problem. We were told that Burma (the whole country) got government electricity on and off and that only one place had reliable 24/7 electricity and that was a very small town with a concrete plant. The hotel did have a generator but at this moment in time it wasn't working. This meant a hot dark room with no hot water. Ok so the last one wasn't so bad but for $15 a night it could have been better.

We woke up and the lights and aircon were on and so we washed up and headed out to sample Burma. As we said in the last blog the money in Burma is a complicated thing. Essentially as there are no atms the government has a great way of controlling how foreigners get money.The official exchange rate is 20 Burmese Khat to 1 US Dollar. Now that wouldn't be too bad, if there wasn't a huge black market offering a rate of approx 960 Khat to a dollar. Based on this we swapped some of our clean, new, pressed dollars (you get a better rate for clean and high denomination bills) and exchanged some at a rate of 930 to a dollar.

Armed with a wadge of money (the highest denomination is 1000 Khat) we set off to find some food and get our bearings. We were some way out of the centre but it was a straight road away and we soon found ourselves with a big gold dome in front of us (a paya - their name for a temple) that marked the middle of the town.We soon saw that everything could still be bought here and that things like a belt, flip-flops and basically what we had just bought in Bangkok was a third of the price here.

The good thing about this was that the food was also cheap. We found a place recommended for its Biriyani. Now this was mainly my stomach driving this as Emma doesn't tend to like rice. Things change. We both wolfed down the huge plate of tasty rice and chicken and were well and truly full. Emma was coming around to rice and it was no wonder why. This was so tasty and you could tell their secret was taking all day to cook it in the big pots on the street.

Nope, I had a moment of weakness. I still detest rice. Its horrible.

So on a full belly we wandered down the alleys and around some of the market to see what was happening and look for someone of the street who could offer us a good exchange rate. There were warnings about this and we heeded them making sure we quiz them fully and take our time to count it over and over.

The first kid we met said we could go to a building, sit with him and he would give us a rate of 960 which wasn't amazing - we wanted 1000 - but it sounded reassuring. We arranged to meet him the next day when we had some $100 bills on us and then headed home. We stopped off at the shopping centre near us and went to see how cheap the beer was. Bad news - it was expensive. It seems the government realised that the main people who bought the beer were foreigners so they had hiked the tax up to get as much as possible back.

Good news - rum was cheap. Like unbelievably cheap. We were working on a 1000 Khat to $1 for ease of calculation. This was just over a dollar a litre. So of course we bought a bottle and drank it that night with Burma Cola (called star cola) and Burma Up (basically 7 up - can't remember its real name). The next day we awoke late to head into town to exchange some $100 bills. We had been told by our hotel that we may have trouble traveling after the 14th of the month as they celebrated the water festival then and this usually lasted about a week. Ignoring his kind offers of a black market bus ticket at 3 times the price we decided to look into this asap as our flight was on the 19th and we didnt want to be stuck up north and miss it.

We found a slightly better offer on the way into town as some admittedly sketchy looking blokes offered us a rate of 1000 Khat per dollar. We sat down an alley with them and counted through 3 stacks of khat rejecting any torn or marked bills as we had heard these couldn't be used. We counted it once and then realised that we had handed them back to the blokes in the meantime and couldnt be sure they hadnt been tampered with. So we insisted on counting a second time this time putting them on the table and keeping an eye on them. Satisfied that everything was above board we got out $300. They passed these around and then started complaining that the serial numbers were too old. During this time we lost track of the stacks on the desk and after they complained that it was rude to count money 3 times we got up and walked away to cautious to continue further.

The next group of men we sat down with were much more open - they didn't take us down an alleyway but sat instead at a street stall. They agreed to 1000 to $1 as well but again when they saw the registration numbers on the bills they wanted a different rate. This time we took greater care to keep the bills under observation and after saying we would just walk away they agreed to do it for 960. This was better than 930 at our hotel so we took it and walked off pockets and bags bursting with notes. We would later go back to our room and count the money and find we had only gotten a rate of 910 losing out over 20 pound. This was a massive blow and also a lesson that you can get scammed even if you are really careful and its better just to deal with nice people.

Nice people? No one is nice..everyone is trying to rip you off..Its a past time. Taxi's, food, drink - everything has a local price and tourist price. It wears very thin after a while. Yep we pretty much got ripped off. The hotel was exchanging at 960 but the dodgey dodgey men on the street offered 1000. We knew that they would let you count the money into piles then when you weren't looking, swap a pile with one that had half the notes in. Me being an arsey bugger, I was determined not to let this happen being so as soon as it started to get a bit suspect i.e they shouted Polisi! and then when we turned round again one of the stacks looked a little thiner - I said I would count the pile again. They tries all sorts to not let this happen...'oh its bad luck'..'oh its rude'..Yeh, sod off mate, so we walked away. Eventually we found one that let us count the piles straight into my bag. I don't know how they switched it or whether me and Andy just cant count, but we ended up with a rate of 910. Gutted. After talking to other people who had exchanged money on the street it seems like everyone gets ripped off to some extent. Some people we spoke to had been swizzed out of hundreds of $, so its not worth it. Well it would have been as bad if Andy had let me go back and find that bloke again giving him a well deserved thumping.

Before we realised all this and headed back we went to find the train station and look into leaving Yangon - the plan being we could come back at the end of our 19 days in Burma and spend the water festival in the former capital. We walked the wrong way to start with and ended up at the port but this did result in Emma having her fortune told. The guy was nice and said she would live a long life, have 3 children, be successful in a leadership or teaching role (not a chance) and also have the potential to earn millions (he didn't specify pounds though...) . He stipulated that this relied heavily on us doubling the money we paid him and getting a candle to burn in one of the temples - we never did. All of this was a much more welcome prophecy than Emma's last which proclaimed her sister would work in nursing and she should not travel on water at night.

We eventually made it to the train station and found to our dismay that the tickets were far too expensive and the bus would still be cheaper even at our hotels hiked up black market price. We were lucky however and saw pictures of buses opposite the station and went to find that they sold tickets at the normal cost. We got these booked for the next day as we wanted to get moving as soon as possible knowing we would have time to do Yangon at the end of the trip.

We grabbed a Thali street meal that afternoon after some long walks in the hot sun. This is basically an all you can eat vegetable curry served with dips and rice or chapatis. Sounds good? It was really tasty and you watched as the woman made the chapatis and everything. Unfortunately it hadn't agreed with Emma and within an hour of getting back to the room she was the illest she had been ever. The whole night was written off and we started to worry about the next day of heavy traveling.

The next morning things weren't any better and we didn't venture out of bed until at 12 we had to check out. I had been down earlier and asked if they could a) change the bus ticket for us as there was a phone number on there or b) let us keep the room until 3 as our bus wasn't until 4. The first guy I asked seemed keen on phoning but was struggling to find a number for the company. When he asked his brother he asked if we had bought the ticket off him. No, because you were charging 3 times the amount. This meant he refused to help and also said we could have the room if we paid for a full night for 3 hours.

So we went down at 12 and Emma being too unwell to do anything we simply sat in the foyer. She was so unwell that she wasn't even giving them her evil eye or anything. In fact she was so visibly ill (it was not a pretty sight bless her) that when the father of the family saw how bad it was he offered the room to keep using and asked if there was anything else he could do to help. They kept offering a lift to the doctors. But we explained that we had already asked for help and not gotten any. The older dad soon took over and had one son calling the bus company (with no success) and got us back upstairs so we could at least wait until 3.

Yeh a crying green westerner sitting in the lobby and refusing to move was probably not good for business.

So we left Yangon after a 40 minute taxi ride to the bus station Emma was staving off vomit (Just) successfully and the driver took us straight to our bus. We were the only westerners on it and as is usually the case with the local buses in Asia we were subjected to local music at full blast, on repeat, till late. We shoved our headphones in and tried to combat Burmese versions of s-clubs "don't stop" and actually looked forward to some of the regular stops for food, toilet or just for the sake of it.

I had been to our local mini mart whilst Emma was enjoying our free afternoons board and stocked up on good upset stomach food - plain crackers, bread and laughing cow cheese spread. This meant that we didn't actually get off and eat but at least they stopped the music.

Emma was feeling rougher as the journey went on and our patience ran thin. My rationale that nobody else had iPods and so relied on this loud in your face pop music didn't seem to hold it's own against the high pitched shrieks still going at 11pm. Emma stormed up to the driver and asked for it to be turned off. Silence was truly golden and we even managed to drift off to sleep.

I didn't exactly ask..I glowered at the radio until he got the message.

The sleep was not long lasted however. We were woken up and turfed off the bus at 3am and given a face wipe and tooth brush. We hung around here waiting for everyone to finish and some people to grab a coffee and toast. Back on the bus and we had had enough. We were close now and just wanted to get there and get a bed.

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