P.S. We are now in Kalaw after a what will one day be seen as a hilarious bus ride. Penny had serious reservations about traveling on an overnight bus (10-12 hr ride). She basically thought it would suck and we wouldn’t sleep, but I read descriptions on-line about the “VIP" bus line, complete with air-conditioning, extra wide reclining lazy-boy seats, free snacks and water, movies, even a free toothbrush and assured her that it was going to be very comfortable and she consented. What I didn’t think of, unfortunately, was that no amount of luxury on a bus is going to make any difference if the road is falling apart. The entire trip felt like we were on top of an unbalanced washing machine on spin cycle on top of a bucking bronco on a sailboat in 30 knot winds. We may as well have been sitting on a bench, because there was no way we were going to sleep a wink (although there was one guy who snored the entire way).
To top it off, they dropped us off (with a bunch of other people) in Kalaw at 3am.
(Penny adds) So I get a point for being right about the bus, not something I get to say often with Ace, but I must say it was still a good overall experience. We met Carson, a delightful German student on break between his undergrad and graduate degrees did much wandering with him once we arrived. After attempting to sleep at the train station, Carson ditched his bag with us and found a hotel, came back and picked us up in a taxi just before dawn. Ace has pictures of our makeshift beds/benches at the train. It gets to a point at 4am where everything seems like a nice place to sleep. We chalked it up to good preparation for our upcoming trek. I found out this morning that it had dropped to -1*C so I’m happy that Carson came back to get us.
Tomorrow (Monday) we head on a trek/hike with Ever Smile Trekking to see some of the natural beauty in the area. We spend 3 days walking with 2 nights staying at different hill tribe villages. We finish at Inle Lake near a hot springs and celebrate our anniversary December 24th (4 years of living together!) at a fancy place right on the lake.
