Yangon

Yangon must be the friendliest place we have visited. Everyone we passed wanted to say hello and practice their English. Even our taxi driver was reading Pride & Prejudice and wanted to discuss its literary merits! Our first encounter with Burmese pagodas was the Shewdagon Pagoda – a huge bell shaped stupa covered in tons of gold. For good measure it is topped by a whopping 76 carat diamond. We also attempted to take the local train which does a circuit of Yangon. We had to give our passport numbers to the police before being allowed on (and pay tourist prices in US dollars). We’re not sure where they thought we would go, but we hopped train after only half an hour – mainly because Hermann couldn’t see out the chest high windows. We got off the train in a street where all the locals appeared to be employed in siphoning off petrol from various cars into jerry cans. We were attempting to find the Green Elephant Restaurant, supposedly the most romantic restaurant in Yangon. But asking directions to anywhere, inevitably ends up as a group activity. All the neighbours (or various random passers) by have to be consulted, usually giving conflicting answers. In then end we jumped a taxi and ended up being taken somewhere completely different. Luckily the hostels take care of onward travel arrangements, so it was no bother booking our bus to Mount Kyaitiyo.