January 7th, 1998

From Pye U Lwin, we bundled ourselves into a pick up truck and managed to get ourselves back to Mandalay in one piece. As I staggered out of bed to catch a five o'clock bus to Lake Inle, the realisation that two weeks is not enough hit me! Are we totally off our heads trying to see everything and anything in less than 14 days? Logic couldn't play a part.

Another 12 or 13 hours later on a very basic Chinese-made bus complete with blaring music and very screwed up shock absorbers.... and we were unpacking once again. As we took off for a walk into the village very close to the guesthouse, we came upon one of the many signs dotting the Burma countryside ......'Love your motherland and respect the Law'. Curious villagers stopped to gawk as we photographed. We would add this shot to the many others we had collected along the way.

We passed young monks on their way back to the temple....their morning's task of gathering food from all and sundry complete. There are hundreds of thousands of monks in Myanmar. Most males are expected to take up monastic residence twice in their lives. Once as a novice monk at between the age of five and fifteen and yet again as a fully ordained monk later on in life. We encountered girl nuns gathering food from local stalls in Mandalay so I'd imagine it is expected from girls as well. Unlike most parts of Asia, boys are not favoured over girls and a female birth in the family is greeted with much excitement. Women are seen as loyal and faithful and will be of benefit when the parents are too old to look after themselves.

We went for dinner in The FOUR SISTERS INN and ate ourselves silly. The women had an unusual but very profitable system going by the looks of it! One could eat as much as one wanted...you paid for the drinks and gave a tip for what you considered was enough for the food you gobbled down. Of course, people love the mouthwatering food...are totally enamoured by the place and the friendliness and no doubt, leave a tip bordering on European levels. If they don't, they really should as it is quite a wonderful dining experience.

The following day, we took a boat out on the lake and toured the 22km long waters stopping off at the local market. We were in for the shock of our lives with the inflated tourist prices but when the local women realised that we were not members of the package tour wealthy hordes but serious hagglers, they changed their tune. The craic was only mighty when other women got in on the act and we spent the next thirty minutes trying to extract different prices from different sellers. All hell broke loose when we bought from one and not another!!Oh dear! My fake Nike baseball cap became an object of scrutiny when one of the men grabbed it and sauntered up and down the path in absolute heaven. Naomi Campbell couldn't have done a better job. The chap spoke English but I didn't have the heart to tell him that it was only an imitation. So delighted was he, that he gave me a silver pot as a souvenir. We had a photo shot and as I jumped back on the boat, I made a promise to send snaps of his new fashion accessory. From Inle Lake, we yet again rocked all the way to Bagan...home to the thousands of Temples that dot the countryside.

Take care,
Ita