Spent 3hrs with Te Nu and her cousin Zau mapping out and booking our onward plans. Lello (my travel companion) couldn't believe what was happening. He says he has never booked a hotel in advance in his life. Our itinerary is: overnight bus to Mandalay Saturday night; 3 days Mandalay; boat (12hr) to Bagan; 3 days Bagan visiting 800+ temples; bus (10hr) to Kalaw; 3 days hike Kalaw to Inle Lake; 3 days Inle Lake. Then we had lunch with Te Nu and Zau at the restaurant down the hall from Experience Travel on the 15th floor of the Olympia Tower. Nice views.
We also changed money on the street: 1 Euro got me 1150 Kyat, and 1 Dollar got me 860 Euro. Lello was less fortunate as some of his dollar bills were quite crumpled / faded, and he only got 850 on average to the dollar. No kidding. Crisp dollar bills command a higher exchange rate than crumpled ones.
This evening we met up with Dan & Ros, friends of Clare Fitzsimmons who I know from the VIS; they are friends of hers from UCL in London. Dan heads up Save the Children in Myanmar, and Ros is officially a housewife but unofficially attempts to continue her career as a journalist, freelance. She's met with 'the Lady' once, but otherwise writes stories about 'the common people'. In a previous life she worked for Reuters in Iraq and Afghanistan. We chatted over a few beers and grilled skewers (beef, squid, ochra) at a street-side BBQ on 19th St before they and their house-guests Christine & Alaistair ('Pants') met another couple for a shi-shi Thai dinner on Inya Lake.
Walking to and from 19th Street, we came across a vibrant food market (fresh fruit & veg neatly stacked, fish mongers with a cornucopia of species glistening on silver dishes, butchers hacking bloody flesh with machetes) one road down from the one our hotel is on; it stretched for blocks and blocks and was a feast for the senses.
Looked up the lake on google earth. Cool. Don't know how to link from iPhone. .
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