On leaving Bagan, Scott managed to score himself an unexpected souvenir - Food poisoning. So following a long and sleepless night for both of us, we boarded a plane and headed for Mandalay feeling a tad worse for wear. Given the state of Scott's stomach our first day in Mandalay was pretty much all spent in bed catching up on sleep. The following day we emerged from our room and picked up a guide from outside our hotel to take us on a tour around the city. First off we headed to an old teak monastery, followed by a few things such as gold leaf factories, marble statue carvers and tapestry makers. From here we went to the Mandalay palace and fort that wasnt actually that old. The original was destroyed by a fire and has ... read more

We've started to write these blogs about two weeks after they actually happened because of the horrible internet access around the country. Now that we're in Yangon and have a few minutes to spare, we thought we would catch everyone up on our trip so far...and maybe, just maybe be able to upload a picture or two. We arrived at Yangon International airport at about 9am local time...which was an hour after we were supposed to arrive because our plane was delayed in Bangkok. Yangon international was nothing like you'd expect, it was basically brand spanking new and had a huge and still mainly empty arrivals hall and customs area. Our hotel (Motherland 2) arranges free airport pickup and also pick up random tourists who don't know where they are going to stay yet. The taxi ... read more

Today we booked our tickets to Bangkok! We leave the 6th of January and arrive in Bangkok at 7:40 local time. From there we are intending on staying the night at the airport (and hopefully recovering from our jet lag) and hoping on the 7am flight to Rangoon (Yangon) in Burma (Myanmar). In Burma/Myanmar we are going to: - Yangon (Capital City) - Mandalay (See the Moustache Brothers, climb Mandalay Hill and the Mahamuni Paya (Pagoda/Wat)) - Sagaing Hill, Inwa and Amarapura (Zeids/Wats/Temples) - Catch the boat from Amarapura to Bagan - Bagan (Temple Ruins - Archaeological Zone) - Inle Lake (trekking) In total we intend on spending 11 days in Burma. From Burma we will fly back to Bangkok and then straight away up to Chiang Mai for about 3 days to ride elephants and ... read more

Today took us first to the Reunification Palace, the home to the pre-Communist government until its fall at the end of the war. At the front of the palace are two tanks from the famous photo of the communists crashing through the palace gates and another fighter jet which apparently dropped a bomb there. The palace itself is a bit disappointing to look at, it sort of looks like an aging hotel from the 60's or 70's that needs a bit of doing up. The inside of the palace was also very dated (obviously) but has a lot of big open spaces. After the palace we found that our next destination, the War Remnants Museum was shut for lunch, so we took an hour long cyclo ride to some temples. The temples were different to what ... read more

Last night was Tet (Lunar New Year) and we were invited to a party in our hotel lobby. At 10pm we made our way down (about a million flights of stairs) to the lobby for a huge dinner. Dinner was really nice...we shared it with an American (and his Thai fiance...about 40 years his junior...he was 73), a German commercial pilot and his girlfriend and a lot of other hotel guests who sat at different tables. Unfortunately the hotel staff didn't eat with us, which was quite a shame. I think they were still in staff looking after guests mode. It would have been nicer if they had joined in on the fun too. At midnight we all went up to the roof top and watched the fireworks. The had some cool ones...but nothing compared to ... read more