Tuesday is a day of two long walks - one in the morning along the Yangon river and one in the afternoon to the older government buildings and train station. I run into a British couple twice during he afternoon walk and we have a little conversation about travel stories during the second chance meeting. During my walks I smile a lot and use the standard Burmese greeting "min ga lah bar" and I get smiles from everyone in return. The logistics of meeting up with my Burmese friends gets all mixed up (and not helped with the hotel's terrible WiFi), but we are on to meet up on Wednesday and travel to Bagan and Inle Lake.
On Thursday morning we make reservations for the Inle Lake stay and then start wandering through the temples. There are many many temples. As far as the eye can see there are temple spires sticking up - some small and some large and some wide and some narrow. Near 1 pm I am temporarily "templed out", so we grab lunch and go back to the hotel to restore some energy for the sunset temple viewings. Later we just make it to climb to the top of a temple, up some very steep stairs, in order to get a view (and pictures) of the sun setting over the Bagan river and Bagan temples. The sunset is fiery and "alive" as Shane says. Well worth the extra trip and the climb. Afterwards we have dinner and then prepare to check out of the hotel and get up early for the Bagan sunrise.
On Saturday we grab breakfast and rent a boat for the day. On Inle Lake their are communities living on the water ons tilted houses. These communities make silver jewelry, make clothes, or do other such handiwork. We stop in at a number of temples and I finally get some souvenir shopping done for the trip (not wanting to start early in the trip and have to carry the souvenirs the entire trip). We also get in an hour hike that is supposed to lead to another temple but we run out of time and turn back. We take the boat back to the starting place and arrive their near 5 pm and call for a short later afternoon rest break. Later we go walking and have dinner and go past a roller skating rink - who would have thought? During dinner there is a motorbike accident down the street (we're told) and we see entire herds of people running down the street to see what happened. After dinner there are 4 neaby shop-owners cleaning the street from the accident (presumably from oil and gasoline rather than blood).
Monday is a transition day. I get out walking in a part of Yangon that I have never been to before and get some decent photos when I wander down narrow alleyways. I go back to the hotel and relax for a bit and take inventory of clean clothes and dirty clothes as well as souvenirs to be given out on the trip and brought back home. At 1:30 pm Aung Ko picks me up and takes me to the airport.