From Kalaw to Mandalay

On Thursday the trek from Kalaw to Inle Lake began. Our guide was Jimmy, a local who has been running treks for seventeen years. Much of the trek was pleasant with some great scenery and some very friendly villages. As usual, the local kids were always willing to greet the passing white faces, although strangely the kids here tended to shout 'Bye bye' rather than 'hello'. Nevertheless they were happy to take some of our free sweets.

Parts of the trek, however, got slightly slippery, and it was half way on the first day when the ground went from beneath my feet and I thumped to the floor in a Laurel & Hardy style collapse. Luckily the mud that loosened my footing made for an equally cushioned landing.

Thursday night was spent in a village home-stay. By now I was beginning to struggle, but it wasn't my tired legs that was the problem. As Axel is vegetarian, our food was non-meat. This proved very difficult for my carnivorous belly.

The second day of the trek involved less rain but more walking. This was really tiring. The evening was spent sleeping in a monastery where the young monks watched very loud TV until late, and then woke up to pray at 5AM. Somehow I managed to stay asleep though.

The final day of trekking got extremely wet and slippery. Me and Axel both slipped over twice. By the time we got onto a boat across Inle Lake, I was far too tired and cold to look up and admire the views, and I think we were both happy to finally get to the guesthouse. The next two days, therefore, were two very lazy days. Exhausted from the previous week's activities, our time was spent eating, sleeping and twisting round a card game Axel knew into our very own game; we call it Burmese Stroke With Extra Panic, and we expect it to take over the world.

Our final day at Inle Lake actually involved visiting the sights on offer. We hired a boatman and visited some handicraft shops, a monastery and a pagoda. That evening we boarded the night bus to Mandalay - and despite yet another night-time hillside breakdown, we arrived in the morning in one piece. After a walk around the city in the daytime, we travelled to see the Moustache Brothers in the evening. For the entire previous week, Axel had convinced me to match him and wear a moustache. This was partly to fulfil his dream of travelling around Myanmar as the Mario Brothers, but also it was for the benefit of tonight's show.

The Moustache brothers are a highly controversial trio of comedians in Myanmar. They have been arrested numerous times for their anti-government jokes, and now are banned from performing outside of their home. However, due to their popularity with tourists, they continue to perform at home and attempt to spread the word about Myanmar. When we arrived at the show, we were the only tourists there. However, our taxi driver had temporarily disappeared, so we returned to the house and baffled the Moustache Brothers' family with a frantic game of Burmese Stroke. Then to everyone's joy, a group of four Brazilian tourists arrived, and the show began.

In truth, the show and the jokes were not that great - but the intimate atmosphere of the tiny living room performance, the prestige of the showman, and the sheer guts of the three men to perform after many years of arrest and forced labour, helped the jokes and funny dances to gleam ten times brighter than they should have done. The act has needed to be altered from Burmese to English - quite a hindrance due to the fact that only one of the brothers speaks English! However, the English rolled off the tongue of Lu Maw at a very speedy pace, and he constantly used various English slang terms and phrases. Axel admitted to understanding very little, and some of the Brazilians to my left were stunned into total bemusement for the full hour. However, Lu Maw's grasp of the English language has to be admired; Before the show started I asked him if there was a toilet, to which he replied "You need to take a leak?".

The show was probably my highlight of Myanmar so far. As me and Axel pass the halfway point of our Burmese journey, however, it's strange to look back. There is little that really sticks in the mind from our travels here - but at the same time, Myanmar feels like my favourite country I have visited so far. While much of our time appears to have been spent trawling from pagoda to monastery to pagoda, it's the incredibly friendly nature of the people here which always make it a pleasure.

Today was spent visiting the sights of Mandalay and it's surrounding areas, and the heat made it particularly difficult, but again it was enjoyable. The locals always seem so happy to see us, and the atmosphere feels so peaceful.