A short walk to a truck stop, Xi had decided we were all going to get a truck down which I think was a good decision, although we had to wait for almost an hour. Luckily she booked 1 with a few other local groups as the actual local trucks were swamped with people climbing in before they even stopped! Finally all in to our open top truck with locals standing at the back holding on, was a bit of a white knuckle ride down but good! Relieved to get back into our lovely air conditioned coach we drove back to Yangon, with a few stops on the way which included a rubber plantation: 9000 trees scored across the bottom with a small ceramic bowl collecting the sap which was then poured into big bath mat size plates, which were drained, dried, smoked then sold. Also stopped at a local fish market by a river, it all looked smoked and to be honest not overly appealing but had a little wonder around which was nice, carried on to stop at the Shwemawdaw Paya (the golden temple) which is the tallest pagoda in the country (they're almost all golden, actual gold for the pagoda with the base often painted with fake gold) and the rain suddenly came down, we took shelter and looked out at some local kids running and sliding along the smooth tiles around the pagoda, was tempted to join in but held back!! The rain soon went and we carried on to see a huge laying Buddha: The Shwethalyyaung Reclining Buddha, the second largest in the world enclosed in a big warehouse type building. Back to our hotel in Yangon we went out with Rachel and Jo for dinner. Haven't mentioned it yet but we only found out a few days before we were going that one of our friends: Rachel was also booked on to our exact same trip!! Small world hey?! This was a lovely surprise and its been great to catch up with her, she's a super lovely person.
