That's all for today...

Well, we've got almost half way through the honeymoon now - my brain hurts now so I'll do the rest of the photo's on another day. For those joining us for the first time, I think I'd probably recommend starting right at the bottom of the blog and working your way up - it's quite a weighty opus so don't feel you have to read it all at once!!

The way that the blog is set up means that all the pictures we put on are at the end - we can't put them in where they should be, cuz that'd be far to easy!! So I'm afraid that you'll have to scroll up and down to look at the pictures when they relate to something in the text.

Enjoy the photos, catch up again soon,

Mike & Nicky xxxx

The Medicinal Plant Research Station

After lunch at the Popa Mountain Resort, our guide took us to this place - it's Government run and covers quite a large area. All kinds of plants with healing properties are grown here and there is also a plant museum, which was quite interesting. It's a strange sight though, to see all these green plants and trees after driving through the relatively desolate countryside at the bottom of the mountain.

Hurray, we made it!!

Here we are at the top in front of the bells that would be rung by people making offerings to Buddha. We're obviously a lot closer to the sky than we were, which makes this the ideal place to speak to Buddha - local people come up here a lot, in spite of the huge climb!!

Fast food Myanmar style!!

This lady was set up part way up the Mount - she has a small stove and plenty of ingredients, and will cook up some fresh noodles on request. Much more appealing than KFC, I think...

A few of the natives...

There are lots of monkeys living on the Mount - I have no idea what kind - but we were advised to stay away from them as the majority have rabies. Nice.

Our first sight of Mount Popa

This is Mount Popa, there's a big temple on top of the mount - 800m above sea level, 777 steps to the top... It's 40c and we're going to climb it - Mad Dogs and Englishmen etc.

Looks innocent enough...

What we have here is betelnut and its accompaniments - it's kind of the local version of marijuana I guess. The leaves are tobacco leaves and I have no idea what the white sticky stuff is, but the whole bundle is chewed for ages and the juices spat out at regular intervals - even security at the smaller airports were avid fans!!

On the way to Mount Popa 02/04/07

We travelled by car from Bagan to Mount Popa, the landscape was quite desolate apart from palm trees and some very dry looking scrub. One of the reasons for this is that cutting trees down was a sign of rebellion against the Government a number of years ago, so much so that now if someone cuts a tree down in the area without permission they could get sent to prison for up to 6 years. This bit of reforestation is sponsored by part of Korea, bizarrely....

Pagoda!!

There are many of these pagodas around the place - Bagan is well known for it. A well spotted photo by Mike....

Every good home should have one...

A full-sized elephant with some people on-board in the front garden of the hotel, we would've brought one home to go outside the house but our suitcases were heavy enough already!!!

Our third residence - Tharabar Gate 01/04/07

Having spent a few days on the RTM, we had a change of pace and stayed at Bagan for a few nights. A completely different landscape from that which we had seen while on the ship, very dusty and red.

Our last moments on the RTM

These are the steps up to the village from the RTM, this children from the village know that Mike's leaving the ship to day so they've come to say goodbye when we go up to get in our waiting car.

Mike's old stomping ground

In the galley, which hasn't changed since Mike's time - not much space in here but very well organised.

Whatever happened to the Likely Lads?!

Ah, here they are - Mike, Kyaw San Win, Tun Tun Lwin and another chap reminisce on the crew deck onboard the RTM.

See what I mean?!

Mike's the soggy one on the left!!!!

A romantic stroll on the beach with a few close friends!!

After lunch and a nap on the ship, Mike organised a boat to bring us and some of the young 'uns over to the sandback opposite the ship. It was early evening and still baking hot, but these children had soo much energy I'm not sure how I kept up!!! Mike, I think, is still a big kid sometimes so he had no problem keeping them on their toes!!

Have some watermelon, dear...

This is at the home of The Boss, a young girl that always takes charge of the younger children and makes sure that any gifts are fairly distributed. We were very honoured to be given tea and watermelon, although I can't even begin to tell you how much watermelon we ate this day!!

We wanna be togevver!!!

And here we are with matching thanaka, as applied by some of the girls in the village - very fetching!!

Even thousands of miles away, Mike is well known!!

This is the plaque that was put on Mike's set of stairs - I love looking at written Burmese, far more expressive than the english alphabet. It came as something of a surprise to Mike that he had still been working on the ship in 2003, he figured that he'd finished in 2001!!

Look what we can do!!

Smaller boy being lifted up with his ears by his friend - not something you see every day!!

Some of Mike's fans!!

How cool is this - Mike has been away for 4 years and still the children all remembered him!! There were many cries of "Mr Mike, Mr Mike!!" on this day, but none of the children were pushy or rude. Can't necessarily say that in this country, that's for sure.....

Steps by Perry!

These are the steps that Mike had repaired with his donation. Having heard so much from Mike about them, it was amazing to actually see them "in person" so to speak!!

Us and a few friends...

The whole crew of the RTM came and shared lunch with us and the monks. This was very special and meant a lot to Mike in particular, everyone was so welcoming and they all congratulated us many times over.

Happy the monk...

They all seemed very happy with the food donation that Mike made, hopefully that means we'll have an auspicious life...

And here we are at the monastery.

This is the important bit - the monks can't touch the donation of food until Mike and I had lifted the table up and down three times. While we're lifting the table, the monk is chanting a marriage blessing for us. Check out our groovy threads too, very comfy clothing that's for sure. The head monk is the one with the eye patch.....

This is more make-up than I wore on our wedding day, I think!! 30/03/07

On the morning that we docked in Bagan, Mike and I went to the Buddhist monastery and had our marriage blessed by the head monk. To look the part and follow tradition, Mike asked a member of the house-keeping staff to come in to our cabin and put thanaka on my face. We both wore our new longyi too..

People generally going about their business on the river...

This is why we were constantly distracted from writing our journals - with a vista like this how could anyone not be transfixed? The quality of light was so different this far down the river, it made us both wish we could watercolour...

The Festival of Light...

It was very hard to capture this on camera - the little red and yellow dots are tealight candles in holders. There are about 2,000 of them and they were put on the river on either side of the ship - this would normally take place in November after the Buddhist Lent is over. It is meant to be very lucky for couples getting married.

We do scrub up well, I reckon...

This is us in our cabin, all dressed up and ready to go to the Cocktail Party.

Looking very Agatha Christie on the top deck.

This was the evening of the second day on-board ship - we were due to have a Longyi Cocktail Party on the top deck, it very nearly could have been a scene from Poirot...

And the arty version that Mike took...

This was taken while we were sailing down towards Bagan on the second day of the cruise - very atmospheric.

The essential sunset shot...

I think we could quite easily have taken 100's of sunset and sunrise photos - the quality of the light is spectacular, especially with the sun reflecting on the water. Very picturesque...

One of the best Asian meals I've ever had!!

Here we have Kyaw San Win and his wife, Sam Ma Kyaw and his wife and Mike and his wife - hurrah!! This is at the Golden Duck restaurant in Mandalay, Kyaw San Win brought us here for dinner on the 28/03/07 - I probably won't ever be able to eat take out again, it just wouldn't be the same!!

Our first major Buddha!

This is a Buddha image in the temple at the top of Mandalay Hill - very impressive and awe-inspiring.

The view from the top...

Aw, anyone think we were on honeymoon!! This is at the top of Mandalay Hill, lots of gold leaf to be seen and a distant if somewhat hazy horizon.

How long does it take 2 Chefs and a Prawn Supplier to fix a Jeep?

Sort of a moot point because Mike, Kyaw San Win and I scarpered and left Sam Ma Kyaw to get the thing recovered while we hoofed it up Mandalay Hill to look at the view!!!

Action picture!!

"I think it's probably the grubnuts leaking oil over the donkey-flange...". From Holden Monaro's to WWII Jeeps - is there no end to this mans talents?

Hurrah!!

And here's everybody outside the school with Mr Mike - a very happy and contented bunch of children, all very pleased to see Mike.

How well-behaved are they?

The schools are all on summer vacation for three months, but the children came back specially to see Mike. They all sat very patiently waiting for the exercise and pencils that Mike had got for them - I have never seen such good children!! They have thanaka on their faces to protect them from the sun when they go outside...

The school at last!!

How cool is this - this is the school that Mike and his colleagues on the RTM sponsored and helped with. It's in a very tiny village not far from where the ship ties up - since Mike last saw it, the downstairs has also been turned into a classroom. The chap at the door is the new headmaster.

Mike's friend and ex-colleague, Kyaw San Win

This is taken in the dining room at lunch on the day we joined the ship. We had a delicious Burmese buffet, all overseen by Kyaw San Win (chap on the right) - he worked with Mike while he was onboard the ship.

Here's a sight you don't see very often...

Look, this is Mike relaxing - it's not that frequent a phenomenon so be sure and memorise it!! Then again, in luxurious surroundings like this who wouldn't be able to relax?!

Look at us with an upgrade!!

Here's a rather nice pic of us - we're now in our cabin on the Road To Mandalay (hereafter known as the RTM) and we're very smiley because the kind people at Orient Express have given us a State Cabin on the A-deck. The lid of the cabinet you can see here lifted straight up and a TV appeared out of it - very James Bond!!

And here are the monks that the food is for.

There were 1,000 monks waiting for their meal here, they formed 2 lines and went in to the refectory with their bowls to collect their allocation. They only eat once a day, which is why they look as if they're taking it very seriously...

Your average monastery kitchen...

This was the second stop of the day, a Buddhist monastery where they were preparing a meal for the monks (all 1,000 of them!!) - the food was paid for with a donation made by a local businessman, his son was going to be joining the monastery on this day.

My first taste of everyday Myanmar life.... 28/03/07

This was a market that we stopped at after we'd all been picked up fom The Governor's Residence and flown to Mandalay. We were picked up from the vast airport at Mandalay and then taken to a couple of attractions on the way to the Road To Mandalay.

Our first Honeymoon Cake!!

An unexpected but very welcome surprise was the news that every honeymoon couple gets a cake - hurrah!! It was chocolate all the way through, but we still managed to half of it between us!!!

The slippery slope for my diet!!

This was just a taste of things to come, but how cool is this? Even though we we're only staying one night, we still qualified for the yummy munchies - the chocs looked to be handmade and the fruit was really painstakingly done.

Our rather swanky room at The Governor's Residence!!

The whole hotel is made from Teak wood, and nothing is overlooked - everything we needed was right to hand, and the bath was made of black marble!!!

Us having dinner at The Governor's Residence 27/03/07

How groovy is this - we've only been in the country a few hours and we are enjoying our first dinner together... This is at The Governor's Residence when we first arrived at Yangon. The heat and humidity came is a bit of a surprise so it was good to sit and eat outdoors.

The Beast

Well, the Holden didn't actually come with us on honeymoon but a gratuitous V8 photo seemed in order!