I've been home for about 24 hours now. I've done as much laundry as I could hang up, unpacked, packed a different bag for tomorrow's trip to Takayama, and been to the school to take down the Christmas decorations. Not too bad, I guess.

I will get further into my Myanmar trip once I get back next weekend (after Takayama, I am coming back for one day of work at the high school and then it is off to Tokyo to say hi to Andy, where we will both flop on the couch, exhausted and broke.), so for now, just a few thoughts.

I was very proud of myself for packing so lightly. Everything fit into my gym backpack and weighed less than 8 kg. As it turns out, I could have been a little less efficient, as Bagan got rather chilly in the early mornings and Inle Lake was downright freezing until the fog burned off, and even then if you were out on the lake it was still chilly. A long sleeved tee or two would have been really handy. If nothing else, I could have lent one to Pauline, who ended up wearing pretty much the same outfit the entire trip, as she is a tropical hothouse flower and can't take the cold at all. I mostly just shivered until the sun came up.

Money wasn't really an issue. We were able to use kyat everywhere so I didn't really need the smaller dollar denominations. I kept my dollars pristine in a very classy homemade cardboard envelope and didn't have any problems exchanging them at the bank.

South-east Asian traffic in general is known for being an interesting and enlivening experience. Myanmar's special take on this is to import all of their cars from Japan (and buses, too. Apparently Myanmar is where old Japanese buses go to die), so they have right-hand steering. Just to make things interesting, they also drive on the right hand side of the road. This makes passing other vehicles on narrow two way roads especially fun. They employ their horns a lot, not in a road rage sort of way, but as a warning. It wasn't so bad in Yangon because they have multi-lane streets, but once you get out in the sticks the highways are about the width of a one way street or even largish sidewalk.

The food was alright but we seemed to end up eating a lot of Chinese food. I think in terms of cuisine, I preferred Laos food. It was usually pretty good, though, and really cheap, and there were all kinds of tasty fresh fruit juices, so I was in no danger of starving.

The people were all really friendly and seemed genuinely glad to see tourists. There wasn't really a sense of being fleeced like you can get in Vietnam or Thailand, where tourists are often seen as money machines. The shopkeepers haven't perfected the art of the hard sell, either, which made browsing a lot more pleasant. I didn't do much shopping, since I only had my small bag, but there was some really beautiful laquerware. If I ever become really rich I plan to do a shopping tour of SEAsia and buy all the things I've only been able to look at from afar. I did end up paying far too much for a silver (possibly) bracelet, but it had elephants on it. I also got a sarong with elephants on it and am tempted to wear the whole ensemble to work one day next summer along with my elephant necklace from Thailand. It will be a truly fabulous outfit.

And now I have to paint my nails and catch up on Doctor Who and Sherlock before heading off to the snow and cold tomorrow. Busy busy!