Breakfast in the hotel decent, coffee, eggs, banana, watched some Myanmar television station showing the news, which consisted of a woman reading news from a newspaper, in English ("so and so person honored in ceremony by the government" type stories). Only one other lodger eating, possibly a Brit, I had passed him on the stairs earlier.

Went walking to the bus company offices that line the stadium, a 5-10 minute walk from the hotel. Was approached by a tout, Indian, asking if I needed to change money, tried to blow him off but he accompanied me to Leo Express's offices, telling me that they weren't running their bus to Mandalay because of some bridge. Sure enough, Leo Express said the same thing, and couldn't be definite about when they would be going. I was disappointed because they had been consistently recommended by other travelers (on Lonely Planet message board, etc.).

Tout said "his company" would be going to Mandalay the next day, as well as Tangoo (I hadn't decided exactly where I wanted to go, just northerly direction). They quoted 2500K for Mandalay, 2000K for Tangoo. Told them I'd think about it, tried to leave but tout was persistent about changing money, finally agreed to after he raised the rate to 620 kyats / $1 FEC, and we went into a teashop. His "partner" (whom I had seen at the bus company stand) arrived with the kyat notes, a huge wad stuck in his front shirt pocket. I agreed to change $80 FEC, and it took forever to count it all out, me bringing out my calculator to try and get my head around all the money and ensure I wasn't taken to the cleaners. Meanwhile, both of them were putting on the pressure to hurry, "people outside are getting curious" etcetera. In the end I made the mistake of not carefully handing over the FEC's and confirming with them how much I was giving them, and so the guy with the wad managed to quickly switch one of the $20 FEC bills for a $5 bill (they looked quite similar), and claimed I had given him only $65 instead of $80. So I gave him another $20 FEC, not realizing the scam.

In fact, it wasn't until I was walking back to the hotel that it started to dawn on me that I had been "had", and I went into an expensive looking Starbucks imitation coffee shop to assess the damage and calm down. Using my calculator, I figured out that after the scam, I had received the equivalent of 510 kyats for $1 FEC. Oh well, lesson learned, I told myself. Ordered an iced café latte for the extravagant price of 530 kyats, and watched CNN on their satellite tv, before heading out.

Decided to walk around rather than return to the hotel, headed east down Bogyoke Aung Sang, stopped at a cathedral that was enclosed in a fence with barbed wire, turned south onto Thien Byu Rd, where I soon passed some "Minister's Office" compound, with a barbed wire barricade on each corner, several checkpoints along the block, soldiers carrying the oldest looking machine guns I'd ever seen. Resisted the urge to take any photos, and tried to avoid eye contact with the soldiers. Eventually reached Merchant Street, made a right (heading west), and soon was back among a throng of people, the sidewalk lined on each side with vendors of all types, many "office" shops with sounds of electronic typewriters clicking away, came across a side street lined with book stalls, a few English editions of arcane scientific texts etc., and the odd copy of Orwell's Burmese Days (going for 600 kyats). Continued along Merchant, past the US Embassy, at the moment I was passing some American (I'm assuming) came out and got into the back seat of a chauffer-driven SUV, with a policeman on motorcycle escorting them as they left the parking lot.

Eventually came to Mahabandoola Garden park, paid 20 kyats to enter, walked around shooting photos then found a bench in the shade, and wrote in my journal. After a while, this young man who had been looking at me from his bench for quite a while finally came over and engaged me in conversation, wanting to know what I was writing and wanting to practice his English (I would later discover that this would become a recurring theme during my trip). He was from Lashio and Chinese, and said he was going to the UK in a month's time to study English. While we were talking, I noticed behind him the police were harassing someone who was sleeping on a bench, being very rough. (Not too different from home - San Francisco - I mused.)

Walked to Anawratha Rd, on the way I ran into Hillary, asked him again about his offer of taking me to the monastery school, bargained him down to $15 US from his initial $20 price, said he'd pick me up at the hotel the next day at 7am. Turned west on Anawratha Rd, looking for New Dehli Restaurant, also mentioned in Lonely Planet. It was similar in food and atmosphere to the Golden City from the day before, all you can eat vegetable curry and rice for 150 kyats, plus 20K for a side of potato curry, and 100K for a bottle of water. Again, absolutely stuffed when I was finished. Walked back to the hotel, bought a bus ticket to Mandalay from the owner, 2000 kyats. I also asked him to write out for me on a piece of paper in Burmese script something that said along the lines of "I'm a vegetarian, but can eat fish." Figured it would come in handy at some point.

Rested in my room and then at 3:30pm met Kjaw downstairs, we had set the appointment the day before, he was going to drive me around to various places, we set off in the direction of Shwedagon, and we stopped in the park that adjoins Kandawgyi Lake. Kjaw took me to the Karaweik floating restaurant which is made to resemble a royal barge, cost 100K to enter plus 100K "camera fee", the place was actually quite depressing, only a few staff about, I imagined with some dread the tour groups filing in there for their evening of "traditional Burmese food, music and puppet show". The lake itself was quite beautiful, and one could just see the gold stupa of Shwedagon in the distance. Before getting into the car Kjaw took me across the street to the souvenir shop, which was even more depressing, I was not interested in the slightest but feigned interest.

We got back into the car and ended up driving around (aimlessly it seemed) for an hour and half, first more of the lake, then back into the city center and along the riverfront (Strand St.), through Chinatown, then through a nice area on the western side of the city (around Baho and Ahlone Roads), nice homes, tree shaded streets (I imagined generals living here). We stopped at one of the gates to Shwedagon so I could get some photos of the huge lions that guard each entrance.

We then drove back to Chinatown, parked (it cost taxis 5 kyats to park on city streets (10 kyat for non-taxis), collected by some non-uniformed person wandering the street), and walked through the main part on Mahabandoola. Unlike the Chinatowns of other cities, this one was fairly indistinguishable from the rest of the city center, other than the plethora of gold shops lining the street.

Was getting close to 6 so I asked Kjaw to take me to Shwe Ba (actual name: Hla Myanma Htamin Zain) for dinner, which was owned (or named after, not sure) by a famous Burmese film actor. It's near Shwedagon, on a dark unpaved street, and I was decidedly under whelmed by its appearance, not that I was expecting something fancy, but this was more open-air food stand than restaurant. The place was deserted, and it took some time for the food to appear (this another recurring theme throughout the trip). Had two vegetable dishes plus rice, 350K for that, plus another 450K for a bottle of Myanmar beer, which Kjaw had a bit of. As we were leaving, two SUV's pulled up together, in one a Westerner, the other a Burmese family, they ate together. In the car, Kjaw mentions something about "maybe a general", I would eventually realize that in Burma, if someone sees an SUV, they automatically assume it is either "a general" or "Chinese."

On the way back to hotel, Kjaw makes a point of passing a couple of the Shwedagon gates so I can see it lit up at night, lots of people visiting, I resolve that I will visit it at night when I return to Yangon at the end of my trip. Gave Kjaw $3 plus 1500K tip, and he said he would pick me up the next day in the afternoon to take me to the bus station (it didn't seem like I had any choice in the matter, and really I was quite glad he would be seeing me off). Watched a bit of MTV Asia on the tv in my hotel room (MTV and CNN the only two stations I could get), and went to bed early.

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