We arrived here this morning and will be here for two and a half days – much too long because a) we came here 2 years ago and b) the city is an hour and half away from the port on incredibly dangerous and pot holed roads. So, one day’s sightseeing is quite enough (when you’ve seen one pagoda, you’ve seen the lot !). 

We chartered a taxi for the day. Its biggest plus was that it had air conditioning but it had loads of minuses; the springs/shock absorbers were completely shot and, in common with most of the other taxis, it was right hand drive in a country that drives on the right.  Given the suicidal  overtaking tendencies of most of the drivers, the wheel being on the “wrong” side makes for interesting journeys to say the least. 

Anyhow, we saw a couple of pagodas, Scott’s Market where we had lunch and had what the locals eat. A bit risky I suppose but extremely tasty and given that it was 6 hours ago now and we’re OK, I  think we got away with it. One of our group was not happy to eat there so we then went to The Strand Hotel (the equivalent of Raffles in Singapore — typically colonial in style) for afternoon tea. Posh but a nice atmosphere – very Somerset Maugham.