As we went to bed last night there were loud claps of thunder and rain hammered down. Very glad to be tucked up in a concrete hotel rather than the local bamboo and tin roofed houses. On our way to the airport,amusingly called Heho...off to yangon we go....we stopped at a charming wooden temple with delightful mosaics and carvings on the outside and our last buddhas of our tour which were also exquisite. In the adjoining hall an initiation ceremony was going on and we were welcomed in and were filmed too. If it had been later in the day they would have insisted we stayed for lunch as they considered an auspicious honour for foreign visitors to have been present but we had our plane to catch. A good flight and little traffic meant we were back at our first hotel at lunchtime. After failing to manage to check in on line,who ever thought the internet was going to make life easy,we took a taxi ,who'd been waiting patiently,to the downtown area. Unfortunately we weren't quite dropped off where we expected but blundered along in the right direction towards the old colonial centre. On a footbridge with a view of the Sula stupa we screen grabbed another tourist's map and found we were on the right track. Most of the old buildings look very neglected,some have been taken over by various government offices. However the Strand,a sister hotel to the original Raffles is still in place and having been renovated still offers a touch of luxury opposite the warehouses and columns of containers in the port. We bumped into 2 other couples from our tour there so clearly the place to be seen. It was the first time we actually paid for our tea and bar bill in US$ during this trip. A taxi back to the hotel with a very chatty driver who pointed out things as we drove back to our hotel. Time to wash and change for our final dinner in probably the fanciest restaurant of our tour but still only £15 a head.