Saturday 12 / Sunday 13 November: TOPSHAM TO YANGON

We have arrived feeling somewhat jaded after 19 hours travelling from Heathrow with Malaysian Airlines via Kuala Lumpur. Neither of us manages any real sleep but seem to manage to while away the hours with videos and the odd closing of the eyes. We fly in over the Irrawaddy delta: a vast expanse of waterways with flooded plains and cultivated fields. We say many blue coloured rooftops and the sun glinting on the golden pagodas. We arrive at 10.00 am which feels like 3.00am and are met by Alex our Burmese guide from Exodus. The heat is overwhelming. So humid: I wonder how we will cope with cycling! We change and shower in The Grand United Hotel ( somewhat of an exaggeration!) and decide to explore rather than sleep. A taxi ride for £1.50 takes us to the Bogyoke Market, a vast indoor area crammed with hundreds of stalls selling shoes, fabrics, clothing, jewellery and local souvenirs. We are now very jet lagged and wonder around in a sweaty and hot daze. Both very pale there will be few photos today. We visit the old colonial Strand Hotel as seen by Rudyard Kipling and Somerset Maugham and drink Jasmine tea in the mahogany panelled restaurant with cool air circulating from ceiling fans. We walk across to the river through more market stalls, seeing more dilapidated colonial buildings, the Mahabandula Gardens and the Sule Pagoda from a distance. This is certainly another assault on the senses with the heat and humidity, the honking of car horns and the bustle of traffic, the people in brightly coloured longhi, the smell of coconut oil and spicy cooked foods. Increasingly weary we get a taxi back to our hotel for a short siesta before an early evening meeting to clarify our itinerary and to meet our fellow travellers. It appears as though we may not have reliable internet access until Mandalay.