Got 6am wake up call from the front desk, showered and went downstairs to check out of hotel, and have my breakfast, they had agreed the day before to serve me breakfast at 6:30am, when I got downstairs it was pitchblack and I was surprised to see the staff of the hotel sleeping on the floor in both the lobby and dining room, would later come to realize this was quite normal in Burma.

Hillary showed up at 6:55, I was expecting a car to be outside waiting for us but instead we started to walk to Sule Paya, I was quite irritated and not sure if this was all some scam, Hillary being evasive about where the car was. Turned out there wasn't any car, for when we got to Sule Paya he started to bargain with various taxi drivers about taking us to the monastery school, after we finally found one and were on our way, I mused to myself how much of the $15 this driver would end up getting.

Drove to the Naga Hlaing Gu Monastery School, which was north of Inya Lake not too far from the airport. Upon arrival we entered into a large building which was packed with young women dressed in pink robes, segmented off into groups of 20 or so, which were different classrooms in effect, each group being taught a different subject. (Hillary said there were about 100 novice nuns, and about 900 male novices at the school). We stopped by one "class" and it was obvious I was a huge distraction, and I felt guilty about intruding on their studies.

Went up to the second floor, where an old monk was teaching Burmese history and were there was bedding and other evidence of where the novices slept at night. In this class, the students, ages ranging from 5-18, had to recite, 1 row at a time, something that was written on a chalk board. On the third floor, there was a large grouping of male novices, probably about 40, being taught geography by a university student volunteer teacher. He gave an example of the ethnic diversity of the novices by having students from some of the various ethnic groups stand up and tell me which ethic group they were from, there were Chin, Wa, Mon, Shan, Kayah, Karen, Kachin, and others I can't remember.

We went outside and across the driveway to another big building where there was a class in English going on, though honestly it was hard to pick out any English actually being spoken (I did hear "astrology" and "philosophy"). Next we walked over to the nun compound, across the street from the main complex, where the novice nuns eat and sleep, away from the male novices. There were only a few young nuns there, shot some pictures of them, they were very shy.

We walked back to the main part of the school and toured around some of the complex, then left in the taxi to explore some of the pagodas in the area and wait for the novices to finish their morning lessons at 10am. First we went to Kaba Aye Paya (known as the "World Peace" pagoda), which has a hollow stupa. Nearby we drove to Mahapasana Guha, which is a man-made cave that houses inside a meeting-hall for monks. Nothing much to see, sort of looked like a basketball court on the inside.

We then drove to Me La Mu Paya, stopping on the way at a furniture shop so Hillary could talk to the owner about us coming back later to observe the novices as they went around the local area soliciting donations of rice and other food. Me La Mu Paya featured an almost amusement-park like tackiness to it, huge Buddha statues, and other tacky sculptures, including a huge alligator that contained a gallery of religious paintings inside.

We drove back to the furniture shop, where we sat for 15 minutes as some of the novice monks came by with their bowls, and were given rice by the shop owner and his workers. We then drove to a cafe adjoining Myain Hay Wun park, to kill time before the novices would return to the monastery with their donations. We had some cold drinks and chatted for awhile, then returned once again to the school.

We stopped about 1 kilometer away from the school, at a place where many of the young novices wait with their donation bowls, hoping for rides to the school from kind drivers. Took pictures and observed the rush each time a car stopped. One driver with a small pickup made 3 round trips. After about 15 minutes we drove on to the school, Hillary inviting 3 novices to ride in the car with us, they squeezing into the back seat alongside me. Back at the school, we stood near the lunch hall and watched as all the novices (males only, the girls eat in their own compound) line up in two different lines, with younger students at the front, and then at a signal they start filing into the lunch hall, very orderly, one by one. After they had all entered the lunch hall, we observed from a window as they prayed en masse, quite a site. We then left and returned to Yangon.

Told Hillary to drop me off near Sule Paya, but he had the driver drop us off at the stadium across from the railway station instead, I didn't complain. As I started to walk in the direction of the bridge and Sule Paya, noticed the tout from the day before who had ripped me off, he obviously had seen me because he was turned in such a way as to make it obvious he was hoping I wouldn't see him. I wasn't about to start a confrontation and continued to walk on and crossed the bridge. As I headed in the direction of Sule Paya, not exactly sure where I was going or what I was going to do to kill time until Kjaw would pick me up from the hotel, a young 20 year old started to talk to me in reasonable English, and when we got to Sule Paya, he asked me if he could just walk with me so he could practice his English, so we continued along Mahabandoola, and eventually pass a cafe with lots of folks inside drinking draught beer, called Y2T Cafe & Restaurant, I ask the kid if he wants to have a drink, my treat, and we enter the cafe. The kid's name is Monyin ("Mon" for being from the Mon state, so he said), and he orders a lichee drink and I order draught Myanmar beer, which after it arrives the waiter bizarrely apologizes for no bottles, and which cost 105 kyats per decent sized mug. Monyin and I talk for about 45 minutes, I order a second mug, he tells me about different tourists he's befriended, and how he takes them to discos and such. Much of the time it's hard to understand what he's saying.

I tell him I need to get something to eat, and he continues to tag along as I walk to Bharat Restaurant, again mentioned in LP. More vegetable curry plus a big water bottle for 300K. Monyin doesn't eat anything, explaining that he doesn't like Indian food because he thinks it's dirty, that he associates Indians' dark skin with them being dirty people. I refrain from commenting on any of this, and resist pointing out the obvious that his own skin is pretty dark. After lunch he walked with me a bit in the direction of the hotel, and finally continued on a different street from the direction I was headed, thankfully, for I had grown pretty tired of him by this point. After leaving him, I found a camera store with Kodak slide film, bought two rolls for $5 each, then returned to the hotel to collect my bag and wait in the dining area for Kjaw to pick me up.

Kjaw picked me up a little before 3pm, it took about 35 minutes to reach the bus station, including a pit stop Kjaw made to buy some betelnut. The bus station was total chaos, after a couple of tries we finally find my particular bus company, I was expecting I would see other tourists at the station but it was clear I was the only one. Kjaw confirmed things were okay with my ticket etc with the company, and then we parted ways, I promising I would contact him when I returned to Yangon in a couple of weeks. Went across the street and bought water and cookies, the someone told me to get on the bus. I naively held out hope that the bus wouldn't be full as it took quite a while for the other passengers to show up, but eventually they did. A couple of monks got on board and one of them was my seat companion. I had been tipped off that I should request an aisle seat, and I quickly saw the wisdom of this advice, as the seats reclined a ridiculous amount to the point that the other person's head was more or less in your lap. Unfortunately, the fruits of this advice were shortlived as I soon realized that they had seat contraptions to fill up the aisle, and soon the entire aisle was full of passengers as well. On board was a huge Indian family, 8 members in all, otherwise everyone else was Burmese. Bus left at 4:30pm sharp which surprised me, just as it started to pour rain outside. After reaching Bago, about 2 hours into the journey, we had a 15 minute rest stop, so I thought, although everyone on the bus (and all the other buses using the same rest stop) went inside the shed and ordered food. Feeling a bit shy about being the only Westerner for galaxies I stayed outside, and was rewarded with a huge rain shower.

Back on the road the crew switched on the video and there was some horribly bad Burmese romantic comedy with atrocious production values that I completely understood despite not understanding a word of dialogue. When that ended, we got some American straight-to-video action flick with I think Steven Segall in it, shown in English with Japanese subtitles, which seemed fair enough. After the movie, it must have been past midnight at this point, there is music being blasted through the speakers, I guess that this is not the sleeping bus. It probably isn't until 1am that it gets switched off. At 1:40am, an obnoxious bell goes off to announce that we're having another rest/meal stop. This time I eat fried rice with peanuts and a fried egg on top (delicious), which plus an orange drink cost 220K. I had no idea where we were, other than somewhere between Yangon and Mandalay, hopefully closer to the latter, for at this point we had been on the road for 9 hours and I had yet to fall asleep.

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