It was to be a long drive on Sunday. To help the driver who was having to drive back the same day, we agreed to be on the road by 7.30am. The guide was not accompanying us today and so Keith sat in the front seat next to the driver. His English was pretty good and he launched immediately into a discussion on world politics. He told us about the current situation in Myanmar and also told us a little about his family. He had a 9 year old daughter who was a pupil at an expensive Singaporean run International School in Mandalay. The fees were $100 a month. He could not afford to pay that on his income of £2 a day as a driver but his wife's parents, who had been in the jade trade, paid the fees for her. His younger sister was married to an American and lived in California. He was astounded that his brother-in-law, who was a carpenter, could earn $25 an hour.

For the first couple of hours we followed the main Mandalay to Yangon road . This was quite a good road, often a dual carriageway, but busy with buses and trucks. Overtaking the slower trucks was sometimes tricky in a right hand drive car and Keith, who had a better view of the road ahead from the passenger seat, had to lend a hand. The trucks do often help other drivers though by indicating when the road ahead is clear for overtaking. It seems crazy for the country to be driving on the right when 95% of the vehicles on the road are right hand drive. It is said that the government made the change to dispel any residue of the British influence in the country.

After a coffee stop, we left the Yangon road for a more minor road and conditions deteriorated. It took another five hours to reach our destination and for most of that time we were bumping and shaking and weaving around potholes. We passed many gangs of road menders, many of them women, but their task of maintaining the road seemed endless.

We had fried noodles for lunch at a popular stopping place and soon had distant views of the mountains towards which we were heading . For the last hour or two we zigzagged up a steep road until eventually we reached the mountain town of Kalaw. We said farewell to our driver and checked in to the Pine Hill Resort, a complex of chalets on the hillside just outside the town. It felt distinctly cool and for the first time we had blankets on the beds.

Tomorrow we were to catch a train from Kalaw but had been left no instructions by the tour company as to what time the train departed. We asked at the hotel reception. The girl said she thought it would be around 11.00am but she would telephone the station to check.

We decided to walk down into the town. As we were passing near the railway station on the way we thought it a good idea to call and see if we could obtain the train times ourselves.   Various notices and what we assumed to be timetables were plastered all over the place but none in English. A man in a crash helmet approached us and asked where we wanted to go . We gave him the name of our destination and he thought about it for a while and told us that the train would leave at 9.00am. Not completely convinced by this we got talking to another man who also wanted to help. He told us that the train would leave at 11.30. To prove he was right he took us to one of the timetables and pointed at it. It was totally indecipherable to us. There was a booking office window and after a while we were able to attract the attention of someone inside. We asked again about the train departure. He appeared to discuss the question with some of his colleagues before advising us that the train would leave at 10.30!

Not sure what to make of this we continued with our walk around the town. It is a popular centre for trekking and there were a few backpackers around. We wandered through the market and weighed up the eating options. Back in our cold room we put on jeans, sweatshirts and shoes and socks for the first time in weeks. It felt quite strange . The only other guests seemed to be a middle aged French couple who were in the room adjoining ours. The walls were thin and we could hear every movement they made.

The temperature plummeted after the sun went down and we dug out our fleeces for the walk into town. Before leaving we asked again at the reception about the train times. Again nobody was certain but they came up with a time of 10.30 which tallied with the time given to us at the ticket office and we felt a little happier. They said we should be at the station for 10.00am.

The townsfolk were wrapped up in scarves, woolly hats and coats but still had just flip flops on their feet and were still sitting out at tables on the pavement. They were all watching English Premiership football on TV. We had a mediocre meal at a small restaurant. I don’t think they were too impressed with having to cook for us as the kitchen staff were all settled in front of the TV when we arrived .

As ever, there were no street lights and we were really glad of our torch to find the way home. There was however an amazing display of stars. Our French neighbours were already in bed but we read for a while (only 5 channels on the TV and all in Burmese) before getting tucked up under the blankets.

It was a cold night despite the pile of blankets. We must be getting soft. We were woken by the voices of our French neighbours. We did not need to leave early this morning and so had a bit of a lie in. Breakfast was in a large, gloomy and very cold room, but the sun was up now and its warmth was heavenly. We stood on the terrace in front of our room just soaking it up like a couple of lizards.

The hotel had arranged a taxi for us for 9.30. It was a battered old Toyota and seemed to belong to the hotel. For the two minute journey to the station the driver asked for £3 . We paid £2 which was still far too much and parted on bad terms. As we wheeled our bags around to the ticket office we were approached by the stationmaster looking glum and wringing his hands. He had bad news. The train was running late and wouldn’t arrive until 2.00pm. He apologised repeatedly and suggested we might like to take the bus instead. This seemed a better plan to us too and so we set off to drag our bags through the town and up to the main road. We were told that buses passed frequently going in the direction we needed and so we sat down to wait.

An overcrowded pickup truck stopped for us but we decided to wait for one of the larger buses. Rather predictably it wasn’t long before a taxi driver pulled up and offered to take us. After a bit of negotiation we accepted his price and piled in. As we were expecting to have the taxi to ourselves we were a bit taken aback when he pulled up two minutes later and picked up two more passengers, a lady who sat in the back with us and a man with teeth badly stained from betel leaf chewing who turned out to be a real pain . Every twenty minutes or so we had to stop for him - to purchase a bottle of water, to relieve himself, to buy locally produced wine for sale at the roadside and then to buy a can of beer. The road was bad in places and it was a bumpy and very dusty journey. In our air conditioned car yesterday we had been able to wind up the windows when the dust got bad. Today we had no such luxury. The front windows were permanently open and we in the back had to resort to covering our noses with a tissue.

It took just under two hours to reach the town of Shwenyaung which was as far as our driver could take us. Here we waited at a dusty crossroads for transport to Nyaungshwe. The taxi controller insisted we sat in his waiting room. It was only 11kms and so we went for the cheaper option of travelling on a motorbike taxi. This turned out to be not so cheap after all as they charged us for the extra space taken up by our bags. It was a delightful run through fields being worked by oxen and along canal banks . We were travelling to this area to visit Inle Lake and already we were seeing many stretches of water. On reaching Nyaungshwe the driver, without any consultation with the other passengers, very kindly delivered us directly to our hotel.

The Amazing Resort was very nice and we had a deluxe room with a spacious balcony overlooking the canal. We had all the facilities we could possibly want (except for wifi that worked) and it seems like the height of luxury after the previous night’s accommodation. We were at a lower altitude and so hoping it wouldn’t get as cold at night but in any case we had aircon which we could switch to warm should we need it.

We made a phone call to the tour agent to explain what had happened and to cancel the transfer from the railway station and went out to explore the town. We liked it immediately. It was rural in feeling, with a lot of activity to watch along the canal, and backpacker friendly with places selling pasta and banana pancakes . A few people approached us to see if we wanted to arrange a boat trip but in the main we were left alone to wander in peace. The sun was very strong but in the shade it was a little cool. Back at the hotel we watched the sun going down from our balcony before washing away the day’s dust and grime in our swanky bathroom. Just as we prepared to go out, "housekeeping" knocked on the door to turn down the beds. They also sprayed the room against mosquitoes and brought us hot water bottles!

We wrapped up warm to go out but found that it wasn’t nearly as cold as it had been in Kalaw. The town was quite busy with visitors, many of them European backpackers. Most places were in darkness by 9.00pm however but we didn’t mind as we had a warm and comfy room to return to with a wide choice of cable TV channels. There was a message for us to say that our guide would be waiting for us at 8.30 next morning for the first day’s excursion on the lake.