[* Or Myanmar-ese Days for those who don\u2019t wish to be accused of lingering colonialism\u2026.]<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve been on the road now for over 6 months and, I\u2019ve got to confess, we\u2019re getting a bit tired.\u00a0 Still LOVING the travelling gig, but every now and again we do sort of start to wish that a giant magic fairy would appear and create our next few weeks itinerary for us.\u00a0 Preferably an itinerary involving lots of uber-luxe hotels for ridiculously cheap prices, plenty of adventure and a large dollop of cool factor thrown in for good measure.\u00a0 And most definitively, no sleeping on floors.<\/p>\n
As it is, however, I am that fairy.\u00a0 And this fairy willed pretty strongly coming into Burma that we were due for a bit more of a relaxed time than we\u2019ve chosen to take on most of our travels.\u00a0 Some high living, fine dining, and maybe even throw in a cocktail or two (I blame the influence of my Mum and Dad, and all those gin and tonics we had in Cambodia.\u00a0 Medicinal don\u2019cha know).\u00a0 And definitively no sleeping on floors.\u00a0 All this to be achieved, however, with no dialing down of the patented James & Lucy adventure-o-meter.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a bad fairy.<\/p>\n
Day one had us in perfectly civilised fashion gawking at the Shwedegon Paya, the most famous religious monument in Burma.\u00a0 And mighty fine it was too, big and gold and gleaming, although frankly less gold and gleaming than somehow I\u2019d envisaged (though James mocks me for this statement, with some fairness given the fairly high levels of goldness and gleamingness on display.\u00a0 But the damn thing is entirely gold leafed or plated, and I just thought that would make it more densely gold than it was.\u00a0 My bad).\u00a0 We\u2019d show you photos but we\u2019d left the SD card in the laptop… oops. Day two had us in a little town up near Inle Lake, cosied up watching Skyfall on Burmese DVD.\u00a0 So far, so good.<\/p>\n
Day three we started our 2 day hike up to Inle Lake.\u00a0 The hike itself was a nice pretty hike, but this is where I ran into my big failure.\u00a0 Yep, we slept on the floor.\u00a0 And, amazingly, for a country that averages 30 deg C or more during daytime, it was FREEZING at night (cold enough to frost).\u00a0 And as usual, insufficient bedding, blah, blah.\u00a0 All of which gave James a bad cold \/ asthma attack and left me slightly fearful he may not ever speak to me again\u2026.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, Inle saved me.\u00a0 Not only is the lake gorgeous and the ethnic fishing style picturesque (they row with their legs.\u00a0 See piccies \u2013 I still haven\u2019t worked out exactly how or indeed why they do this but sure looks good), but we were staying in a pretty kick-ass hotel, made up of bungalows on stilts built out over the water.\u00a0 AND we managed to wangle an upgrade (I looked so desolate at our initial room having hard twin beds they took pity on us. Result!).\u00a0 We had a lovely lazy couple of days messing round on boats and James has consequently just about forgiven me for the floor disaster, despite the fact that we didn\u2019t manage to see the famous jumping cats of the Jumping Cat Monastery (I really don\u2019t make this stuff up) actually jump, and also despite the fact that the Lake\u2019s famous golden Buddha turned out to be a big golden blob due to slightly over-enthusiastic application of gold leaf.<\/p>\n
I think the rum sours helped.<\/p>\n
Now if I can only find some fine dining, I\u2019ll be right back on track\u2026..Although this is Burma, not necessarily the world\u2019s great culinary epicenter.<\/p>\n
Arrgggh.\u00a0 Being an itinerary fairy\u2019s tough!<\/p>\n\n\t\t