Inle Lake

Easy decision on where to get off. 2.30am arrival at the first option: we'd go anywhere not to be kicked out into the dark. We head to Inle. As it is we spend several hours crouched in a doorway waiting for dawn and the teashops to open.

We decide to treat ourselves to a luxury pad on the lake itself, possibly, as the lake turns out to be 5km from town. We end up through a series of random choices in a farang-free village on the edge of the lake. It just happens to be Myanmar tourist central with no idea about how to cater to farangs - good-bye luxury. A canal full of thundering motors where boats unload literally hundreds of tourists every hour who fall upon the restaurant below us like seagulls, ransack the attached shop and storm out to be replaced minutes later by the new lot.

These are boat loads of vendors being bussed home at the end of the day: the drone of boats is so constant we have the impression it's all a charade, and at the end of the day they go home, take off the costume, and go back to normal life.

As Ul says, how local do you really want to go? Exhausted after the trek and bus ride, tempers at a low. Much soul searching re tourism, sustainability, post-Congo detox, and what on earth we are doing here.

Only in the middle of the night is there blissful quiet. Owls and crickets. We sleep deeply.