In which Layla and Roz inadvertently attend a lesbian wedding and climb a mountain in heels

By Layla

Up bright and early - or rather dull-but-not-raining and early, we seized the importance of our last Seattle day by leaping up, dashing to Joe's for some breakfast granola (Roz) and oatmeal (me) - to counteract our days of decadent egg-and-avocado-based breakfasts of late - and dashed down the hill to catch a bus and deposit us by the water, where we caught the 11:20 ferry to Bainbridge Island. Taking ferries around the water surrounding Seattle, known as the Puget Sound, is a popular activity for Seattlites and tourists alike. We'd previously planned a 3 hour journey each way to the San Juan Islands, but as the wind picked up and the grey rain clouds mocked us, we thought 35 minutes was a better bet. And it was lovely - not only did we get to enjoy the Seattle skyline from the water and see various scenic views of island countryside, we also happened upon a lesbian wedding, and cheerily stood on the upper deck, teeth chattering, and watched them saying their vows and noting their goosebumps - a cardigan would not have gone amiss! 

When we got to the island, which was like a little 1960s seaside village, we walked down the quaint but unexciting high street, had a little browse in the quite extensive bookshop, and settled ourselves down for lunch at a cafe near the marina where we made up for our egg deficit and sampled the local Bainbridge beer while noting the clouds had burst during our meal and the rain was beating down steadily. It had settled to a sprinkle by the time we left in doomed pursuit of a 'Waterfront Path', but we did walk through some woods and eventually found our way back to the boat, just in time for its departure back to Seattle.

Back on dry land, we walked up a very steep hill with the aid of some salted caramel chocolates, and visited the library. Tis very impressive irregular glass building looks amazing from the outside, and while it was not quite as thrilling from the inside, we enjoyed a quick potter, before catching a bus to the Space Needle. This icon of Seattle was built for the world fair and was also the inspiration for the Jetsons' house (if you ever watched the cartoon, you'll have a vision). A pleasing lack of queues meant we zoomed straight to the top and had an unexpectedly lovely time strolling round the circular patio and taking in the views across the city, ocean, lake, and mountains (and rain clouds smiling benignly upon us - hooray!).

We took the bus home grudgingly back, then headed off on a half hour trek to Rover's, one of Seattle's very best restaurants which is sadly about to close down. Luckily we got in before it did, as the was a decadent and glorious vegetarian tasting menu with our name on it! We had a delicious and interesting meal with all sorts of impressive flavours and pretty presentations. Then, more than replete, we consulted Google Maps re our next destination. I'd planned a taxi but it was still early and my phone told me that a half hour stroll along Mercer Street would take us straight to our destination - the Harvard Exit Cinema for our final SIFF film. And so we set off. A few steps into our journey, we arrived at Mercer Street and started to laugh. Of all Seattle's impressively huge and steep hills, we had never yet encountered one like this. Stretching almost vertically into the sky, it looked like the sort of mountain you'd usually approach with ropes and crampons. Armed only with our little patent shoes (Roz's with a significant heel), we mounted the mountain. On and on we trekked, and every time we thought we were nearing the top, it turned out to be a momentary flat bit before an even steeper section. For the entire journey. By the time we popped out at Joe's for a sneaky pre-cinema glass of wine, we literally felt that we'd gone for a significant hike. But we'd probably worked off some of the courses of that tasting menu! 

The final film, Two Weddings and a Funeral, was a Korean gay sort-of-comedy and was interesting and obscure and quite good. It seemed a fitting end to our Seattle International Film Festival experience. We strolled home sadly, rather wishing it wasn't time for us to leave Seattle. At the start of our holiday we'd wanted to live there. The incessant rain that stops you doing most of the cool outdoor activities the city and environs has to offer (not to mention those terrifying hills and depressingly massive homeless population) has perhaps tempered our enthusiasm but we still loved the city, its coffee shops, its restaurants, its quirkiness, its local pride, its festivals, its scenery, its bike trails, its public transport, and its many variations on the egg and avocado dish. I hope we get to return soon. But now: on to New York!

In which Roz and Layla go underground, cycle and make a comedy organizer very happy

By Roz

After breakfast we headed - in the pouring rain - to the Elliot Bay bookstore.  It seems to be something of an institution in Seattle and was a fab place to browse for an hour or so, whilst I tried to persuade Layla to buy (and then carry) numerous books, mainly to little avail. Eventually we decided to head out and walk down to take an underground tour of Seattle. Though not generally a tour enthusiast, this one had been recommended by a couple of people and, we reasoned, it can't rain underground... We arrived slightly late, very damp and a bit flustered. And so I sent Layla in search of food (what could be better timing?!) whilst I nabbed us seats for the first part of the tour - a quick description of how and why Seattle had an underground. I subsequently regretted this, as time passed and I became anxious that she wouldn't be able to get in and I would end up doing the tour alone whilst she ate the food (I suspect that I shouldn't admit which aspect of this I found most worrying!). Still all was well, and I enjoyed my sandwich when Layla finally arrived. We were then divided into groups and Layla and I found ourselves with one of the perkiest human beings I have ever met: our tour guide. She had at least ten different synonyms for "awesome" which was just as well given how frequently this word needed to be deployed on the tour (a particular favourite was 'swanky'). Notwithstanding (or because of?) this, we enjoyed the tour immensely. It was fun to see how the city had been raised by 15-20 feet to reduce the recurrent flooding due to tides (though we couldn't help wondering why the city planners felt the need to preserve the mountain-like hills when they were doing this) and to wander along what had once been the sidewalk of the main street, and into what was originally the storefront of the bank and so forth - all now 15-20 feet under the current pavement. The tour guide did a nice job on the history of Seattle and all in all it was a very pleasant way to spend a couple of hours. 

We emerged from Seattle's underground (which had not been entirely free from damp) to find it was still raining. Disappointing. And so we headed through the international district (definitely less salubrious than it sounds!) to the Panama Hotel. The hotel became a local landmark a few years ago when the owner discovered in the basement the belongings of a number of Japanese families who'd lived in the area when Pearl Harbor was bombed. They had stored all their possessions there before being interned for the remaining duration of the war - and had never returned to get them.  Layla and I had read two books set in Seattle in preparation for our holiday - Where'd You Go, Bernadette? and The Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet. In fact, Layla read Bernadette on the plane, and devoured The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet in Arabica coffee only the previous day, as I speeded her along - because the eponymous hotel was just around the corner and I wanted her to be as keen as I was to visit. When I saw tears dripping down her cheeks, I knew it was time. The hotel still had a Japanese tearoom, where the characters drank tea in the book, and part of the teahouse has a glass floor, though which you can still see some of the unclaimed suitcases and furniture belonging to these evacuated Japanese families. Sad but interesting, and a funny experience to feel like we were almost in the book we'd both loved and wept over. Over a very large pot of peppermint tea and a slice of squash cake, we played Spanish scrabble in English. This is harder than it sounds (though Spanish scrabble in Spanish would be even harder for us!) since the balance of letters is wrong (I found it very disappointing to find myself with two of the letter "j" at one time - and they didn't even come with as many points as they do in the English scrabble). But fun. Layla won (annoying) so I made her hold the umbrella over me whilst we waited for a bus home.

We got changed and then headed out for an early evening film in a torrential downpour that rendered our trip home to change into drier clothes a tad pointless. For once, it wasn't a gay film (Seattle's International Film Festival seems to have a disproportionate number of gay films especially given that it has a gay film festival later on in the year - pleasing but curious) but instead was called A Lady in Paris. It was a relatively good film about an older Estonian lady who moves to - guess where?! - Paris and how she makes a life for herself. This was probably one of the better films we saw at the festival and we took ourselves from there to a nice Spanish restaurant called Tango, where we ate tapas very happily. We then headed back to the cocktail bar which we had been to on our first evening - Sun Liquor - for a gin cocktail or two. We walked home, bemoaning the lack of lovely cocktail bars near our flat in DC...or in Camberwell, now I come to think of it!

The next morning we both slept late, our bodies finally willing to concede we were in a different time zone and on holiday. Since it wasn't raining when we woke, and the forecast wasn't too bad, we decided to leap up and head to a place called Ballard where we'd heard we could hire bikes and go for a nice cycle. Our enthusiasm to get on with the day meant that we missed breakfast (to our consternation) and so by the time we were in Ballard we were more than eager for an early lunch. After a couple of false starts (the yelp reviews we had read on the bus had failed to mention an excess of neon in one establishment) we ended up in an organic cafe eating lentil soup and a sandwich, both of which were perfectly nice if not immensely exciting. We then headed to the bike rental place, kept our fingers crossed that the weather would stay acceptable, and hired two very pretty and good bikes and headed off onto a bike path, which quickly found Lake Union and then provided us with a lovely cycle along the water to begin with and then through a gas works park (nicer than it sounds!) and then through the countryside and then through the university. We spent much of the ride debating which story Layla should tell at a storytelling competition that she's competing in soon and having come to a satisfactory conclusion I felt pleased with myself (and Layla felt relieved the decision had been made). The weather stayed nice - and it even became sunny - so we went further than we intended (8 or so miles) before deciding to turn off the path to go down to the water. This was fun, even if we didn't enjoy climbing the hill back to the bike trail after. We then headed back to Ballard, delighting in the reasonable weather and the flat route. Having deposited our bikes back, it began to rain. We waited for a bus in a cafe attached to a gaming shop (Dungeons and Dragons kind of games) which was somewhat mad but quite fun and then hopped on to the bus to see a place called Fremont. For those of you not in the know, Fremont is the self-declared capital of the universe. In other words, it is a tad mad but quite jolly. We saw grass sculptures of dinosaurs, a 10ft iron sculpture of Lenin, a troll and other delights on a walking tour that Layla found in a guide book. 

We then hopped on another bus (Seattle has really good public transport!) and headed back into Seattle for an early evening dinner at a place called Lola's that had Mediterranean food (we had a lot of halloumi). We then headed over to a place called Rendezvous where I'd heard that there was promising-sounding comedy ("women focussed but not women exclusive"). When we went to buy our tickets, the ticket-seller (who turned out to be the organiser) asked us who we were here to support. Somewhat perplexed, we said that we were just visiting Seattle and had heard that there was comedy. The ticket-seller / organiser looked up at us with pure joy in her eyes and told us that we were the first people who'd come just for the sake of the comedy (and not to support a friend). She asked how we'd heard about the evening and I subsequently heard her telling two different sets of people, with some awe, that there were people there tonight who'd found out about it through googling "Seattle comedy". Resisting the urge to run, we settled down with a beer and a lot of curiosity about how bad the comedy would turn out to be. When the ticket seller came on stage to introduce the host, she referenced "the audience members who are here because they found us on the Internet" and this did nothing to dissipate our fear. But in fact, it turned out to be quite a good evening of stand-up - variable quality of performer, but that is almost always the case wherever you go, and each comedian was only on for two minutes. It was nice (or do I mean odd?!) to be hugged warmly by the ticket-seller / organizer when we finally left. It was certainly nice to know our presence had made someone's night. And so - when we found it was raining when we got outside - we treated ourselves to a cab home.

In which Layla and Roz visit the Emerald City and find coffee, cocktails and rain

By Layla

After our exotic Burma adventures, we were worried about appearing a bit prosaic... But the US is full of places people rave about, and one of those we hear most about is Seattle... And so, after a plane journey long enough to have practically deposited us in London, here we are in the Emerald City - the nickname for Seattle which is possibly bestowed due to the greenery - thanks to almost incessant rain.

A holiday in the west coast US equivalent of Glasgow? Risky, but if Frasier (beloved sitcom star of my youth) could love it, so could we! And having deposited our bags in a stylish and comfortable apartment in the heart of Capitol Hill (Greenwich Village-ish place - less cute, more cool, fewer tourists), we headed out to one of Seattle's impressive number of truly cool little bars. This one was called Sun Liquor and perched comfortably at the bar, as a lover of cocktails and the slowest drinker in the world, I was particularly delighted to find gin cocktail flights! We both opted for this and as we sat sipping them and loving the ambience of this place (which actually makes its own gin, called Hedge Trimmer Gin, we were impressed that we had boarded the plane only after work that day and were now officially on holiday, far far away, that same evening. Hooray for time differences!

We arose on Saturday and headed straight to Vivace to let Roz experience her first (of many) Seattle coffee, then went for brunch in a cool venue called Americana where we enjoyed combinations of eggs, avocado, and salsa. Delicious. Part of our reason for being in Seattle was SIFF, the Seattle International Film Festival, and we had our first movie booked at the nearby Harvard Exit Cinema at 11am. Still early due to jetlag, we bought more coffee from another cool cafe (Roy's, perhaps) and headed off for a walk round a nice nearby park, where we circumnavigated locals doing various exercises, before grabbing some popcorn and settling down for The Geography Club, a not amazing but very enjoyable film about gay teens. Very satisfactory.

After the film, we grabbed a quick sandwich (Roz)/crepe (me) for lunch at Joe's cafe across the street, then walked down to a bike tour place. Delightfully it wasn't raining - in fact it was almost sunny - and we had a 2 1/2 hour cycle tour of downtown Seattle. We went past various cool sites, like the amazing glass public library, Chinatown, Pioneer Square (which doubles as the historic centre of town and the epicenter of homelessness), and then along the waterfront, up past the Space Needle, and back. Quite interesting, though the rain did start to splatter towards the end and we were glad to spot a bus bound straight for our house. A quick change of clothes and a hop onto yet another bus, and we were deposited in Queen Anne, the district that is home to the SIFF Uptown cinema. We had an early dinner in a well reviewed and very pleasant Indian restaurant called Roti, right across from the cinema, then joined the queue for the completely sold out The Way Way Back, a film about a family which was not especially interesting (for either of us) but very well done, and then retired to the after party at a nearby venue. However, after a couple of glasses of champagne it was beginning to feel a bit too much like a work drinks reception, so we skipped out and headed for a very cool speakeasy Roz had read about, the Knee High Stocking Company. We walked right through a giant folk festival (which weirdly, at 9pm, had finished and everyone had gone home to bed - our kind of music person!), past the space needle, and then, after our bus didn't come, on and on for half an hour up a big hill til we got there at last and found they were full.

A small amount of angst later, we relocated to a very nice bar, Tavern Law, where we sipped cocktails and eyed the little black phone that people were quietly using - the entry to a speakeasy above the restaurant called Needle and Thread. We glanced at each other, then I went for it - and they fit us in! Soon we were perched high above the loud, busy bar in a serene, 20s-style, comfortable bar and sipping excellent cocktails - and feeling very cheery and smug. And it was a mere 10 minute walk home. A successful first day in Seattle. Impressions: rain, hills, quirk, people not using umbrellas, lots of people with tattoos and pink hair, lots of homelessness, everyone in bed by 9pm, numerous fabulous coffee shops and genuinely cool bars, and a very fun film festival. And we wouldn't mind living here at all...

The next day with rain sprinkling down, I was despatched to buy the coffee and bring it home. But then we did venture out, to Arabica - another cool coffee shop and brunch venue, where I got obsessed with a book, The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, set in Seattle, and made us stay there til ridiculously late, but we hopped on a bus and were on time to see a rather depressing Israel/Palestine gay film called Out in the Dark at SIFF Uptown. Afterwards, feeling a little dreary, we stocked up with ice cream, and walked through the ongoing folk festival - hippy-tastic! And to this weird new museum under the space needle by an artist called Chihuly - a glass blower who has made all these massive, amazing, colorful glass sculptures, including those planted in a weird, surreal, Alice-In-Wonderland style garden. It was quirky and cool and pleasing. Afterwards we went to a second hand book shop called Mercer Books and bought a couple of books, then had another coffee (when in Seattle...) and returned to the cinema, this time for 6 gay-themed short films, many of which we really enjoyed.

Bus success this time saved us from another 2 mile hike and we settled down in the excellent Lebanese restaurant ManMoom where we indulged in halloumi, wine from the winery we visited in Lebanon, and other delights... Then popped round the corner where, smugly holding our reservation, we were at last granted access to the coveted Knee High Stocking Company. Which was cool and fun and nice, and we had a couple of cocktails til a wave of exhaustion hit me and Roz impressively put us on a bus home. Public transport is very convenient here!

And so here we are on Monday morning, branching on avocado and eggs and planning the day ahead. It is tricky when there's so much to do in Seattle that's outside and there's this unpleasant drizzle. But this is such a cool, stylish, laid back, funky city. We will be fine!

In which Roz and Layla finish our Burma holiday in Philadelphia

By Roz

We once famously did a holiday (from London) that involved going to Georgia, Ukraine and Lisbon (diverting from an excess of rain in the initial country, whose main charms were outdoors). This has prompted me to think a little more outside the box when it comes to holiday planning/alterations and so it was that it made total sense to suggest to Layla as we cycled through the hills of Burma that we leave Burma a couple of days early and head from there to Philadelphia for the last leg of our holiday. It felt a little less logical when we checked in to our hotel in Philly and they asked us whether we'd had a good journey and we had to admit we had travelled for 36 hours to get there...but we did get our room upgraded to one overlooking the Liberty Bell as a result, so all's well that ends well...

Having dumped our stuff in our hotel room, we popped downstairs out of the hotel and walked just a few minutes along the road to Amada, a lovely Spanish wine bar / restaurant, which had been recommended by our friend and is one of the top restaurants in Philly. We had a delicious meal, very much enjoying the change from rice and vegetables to Spanish tortilla, a delicious salad, a beautifully cooked artichoke thing and a little wine. We lingered over our meal, having absolutely no urge to go further afield in our exploring (but also not wanting to go to bed too early) and wished this lovely place was in DC. 

We slept quite well, reveling in the crisp sheets that had been so lacking for most of our Burma holiday, though I woke up too early (5am) and only managed to hold off till 5.50 before waking Layla. This meant we were out of our hotel a little early and found ourselves arriving - throughout the day - at every venue just as it was opening. Our first stop was breakfast in the museum area at a lovely cool place called Sabrina's. Despite the early hour, it was almost half full 5 minutes after opening (and when we left there was quite a line for seats). We both had a "barking chihuahua" - a breakfast burrito which was huge and delicious - before contemplating our next step. We flirted with going to the Franklin Institute before we remembered that science museums are usually full of children, and so headed to Philadelphia's Museum of Art. We felt somewhat doubtful doing so - everyone has told us that the other art museum, the Barnes Foundation, is much better. But you need to book tickets for there well in advance and my planning enthusiasm from Burma hadn't extended quite that far. But we were quite wrong to have low expectations of the museum - it turned out to be both excellent and blissfully peaceful. We saw Van Gogh's sunflowers, lots of Miro (including a favourite of mine of a dog barking at the moon which I always wish we owned), plus some Picassos, many Monets and Manets together with some good modern art. We interrupted our visit for a sit down in the nice cafe and then struggled to stand up again... We had to admit at the end of our visit that we definitely felt knackered and my plan of walking us back into the downtown area for a little book shop browsing had been optimistic. Instead, we hailed a cab and headed back to the hotel for a glorious lunchtime nap instead of lunch (we were still full from our breakfast). A little nap turned into 2 and a quarter hours and so it was the early afternoon when we forced ourselves awake (the time difference is 12 hours!) and headed out for a coffee in a cute nearby cafe, Old Town Coffee. 

After coffee, feeling mainly revived, we walked round the corner to the cinema to see a new film called Yossi. This turned out to be an inspired choice: funny, sweet and engaging. We came out of it feeling very cheerful and then hopped on a bus into the centre of town to go to Fox Books before dinner. Clutching our literary purchases in a pleased fashion, we walked a few blocks to get to our dining destination: Sbraga. The chef is apparently famous (from TV) and the restaurant was full throughout the evening. We had four delicious courses (a really excellent salad, then an Asian eggplant dish for me and gnocchi for Layla, then a polenta dish and finally a sort of lemon meringue tart for me and rice pudding for Layla). At the end of our meal we got chatting to our neighbours, who were a very nice older couple, and we swopped restaurant recommendations for DC and Philly in an enjoyable fashion. We then walked round the corner to Franklin Mortgage and Investment Company, which is a nice unmarked speakeasy bar where we spent the rest of the evening drinking gin. A very satisfactory day. 

We slept well though again woke early. We walked through the gay village to a different Sabrina's (having agreed  some justification - which I have now forgotten - as to why we weren't being lame in going to eat from the same menu two days in a row) where we had pancakes and omelette. Both delicious. Half way through the meal, though, I started to feel a bit green. Alas this is something that often happens to me when I travel too much and so we agreed to postpone our plan for the morning and retreat to a lovely nearby cafe (called Charterhouse Square) where I sat quietly hoping the feeling would pass. It more or less did after a while, and in the interim we both had a jolly time reading (in my case contemplating the madness of the Chris Huhne / Vicky Pryce saga) and wishing there were more nice cafes in DC. From there we headed to Philadelphia's magic garden. This turned out to be a mad place with art done with mosaics, mirrors, bits of bikes, and beer bottles. We had a jolly time there, though studiously avoided engaging with the artist, who was kicking around, for fear of saying the wrong thing ("nice art, but it's a shame that so many bicycles had to lose their wheels for it" being one example...). We then headed through town to see Rittenshaw Square, which was jolly, and then slowly headed back to our hotel, contemplating whether we could manage lunch (we couldn't) and occasionally speaking with horror of returning to work. 

We picked up our bag from the hotel, and headed to the station for an early afternoon train back to DC. On the escalator down to the platform, I found myself nearly knocked off my feet and down the escalator by a flying bag (belonging to a lady further up the escalator than us). Rattled, I told her that she shouldn't travel with a bag if she couldn't control it. Standing on the platform afterwards, Layla and I contemplated that we really shouldn't be brusque with strangers en route to DC - it's the kind of place where these things come back to bite one. And that kind of thinking, I fear, shows that we really nearly are back to real life. Ah well, it's only 11 weeks till our next trip. And Philly was fantastic. 

In which Layla and Roz see their last temples, eat a lot of ice cream, and fly back to DC early

By Layla

With the taste of that glorious cashew nut vanilla ice cream still in my mouth, Roz and I persuaded each other that we should definitely return to Black Bamboo for dinner. And so we did. I proved a poor dinner companion, as I was immersed in a book, but pre-prandial G&Ts and tzaziki enabled me to polish most of it off and pay attention over our tasty tomato tofu curry in the pretty garden restaurant. 

As ever, it was an early bed and an alarm of 5:45am as we hauled ourselves sleepily out of bed, via the omelette maker, to the van, and as the sun rose over the temples, we speeded up by van to Mount Popo, one of the holiest sites in Burma, though it seems this particular brand of holiness was not Buddhism but Nat. I think they said there are 37 different Nat (people turned into spirits/ogres) and one worships them along different themes depending on what you need. So for instance there was an education Nat to worship before a big exam... There was a gambling Nat to worship if you're off for a spot of Las Vegas action, etc. The mountain itself was quite scruffy and jumping with ratty-looking monkeys. Fun to see a gold temple perched on the very tip of the mountain, like a fairy tale. But frankly I was distracted by the imminent long cycle home. Sure enough, before long we were zooming down the hill by bike (though there was a surprising amount of uphill involved too, much to my sorrow). The roadside children shouting "Mingalaba!" here were less impressed with us and more tourist-savvy, with their additional calls of "Money money money!" And attempts to knock us off our bikes. Someone did actually fall off their bike, but due to not noticing a speed bump rather than the local children's antics, and had to be conveyed to hospital - luckily nothing worse than a black eye, some scrapes, and a chipped tooth, but a bit scary, especially when I (who I admit had taken to the van halfway down due to my own injuries playing up)heard someone was badly hurt and didn't know who it was. Meanwhile, the object of my concern, my dear wife, had taken advantage of my absence to cease pottering slowly along the road to keep me company, and was now zooming right up at the front with the very fastest riders. Apparently going at 26kph steadily all the way home, she beat me in my van by some way! Her smugness was vast.

We jumped in the pool for a quick swim (me swimming with one arm above my head to protect my healing arm wound), and then headed off for lunch to the delightful Black Bamboo for sandwiches and lassis and book reading. Before succumbing to the heat (and the intermittent nature of the electricity powering the fans) and taxi-ing back to the hotel. We had another dip in the pool, then, realising it was our last night in Burma, headed out for a romantic sunset ride to the temples of Bagan in a horse and carriage. This would have been quite nice, had we not feared for our lives as the precarious contraption negotiated its way around giant lorries and buses, and then across sand, to deliver us to the first temple we visited yesterday. We climbed up just in time for sunset, and watched the thousand of temples forming numerous tiny peaks along the 360 degrees horizon turn pink as the sun dropped down.

We returned to the hotel in time for the farewell meeting (the tour doesn't officially end till Saturday, but our bike guide left us in the questionable hands of an outsourced Yangon agent for the last bit), so there were lots of thanks, after which Roz and I, upon hearing plans for a group meal, fled to Black Bamboo (there are only 2 great restaurants in Bagan, I think, so their choice of Aroma 2 made ours for us). Embarrassingly, one of the tour helpers spotted our abdication, thought we'd done it in error, and raced after us to bring us back to the fold. The shame! We made our excuses and had a lovely meal together, musing that we are probably not cut out for tour groups...

The next day was a glorious lie-in: we didn't have to set off til 8am! We reveled in the luxury, had our breakfast outside in a pretty poolside garden (instead of a rushed early affair in the miserable dining room as usual), and soon were off on a rather nice 10km round-trip cycle to a couple of obscure temples. If only every day had been 10-20km, and started at 8am, rather than 6:30am and up to 70km... We were back by 9:30 and found a poorly planned day by our tour, where we had to check out of the hotel and return bikes by 12, then leave for the airport by 4.15... Cue most of our group sitting in reception all afternoon. We used the bikes for a final Black Bamboo lassi, tzaziki and sandwich, then returned, had a swim (arm in the air again), and read our books in the shade til the bus drew up and our 30-hour homewards journey commenced.

When we touched down in Rangoon and everyone else boarded the tour bus back to the original hotel, Roz and I took a taxi to the Green Elephant restaurant. This turned out to be a stressful drama when the taxi driver didn't know where it was, then got caught in horrible traffic, but it did mean we had a lovely last Burma meal in a romantic, twinkling light setting, and of course a final glass of Aythaya wine. Well, not quite final. We eventually got back to the airport in time to check in for our flight. Then we went through customs, with two passport officials examining our passports, side by side, when the airport tannoy started playing a Burmese song. Without any self consciousness or even seeming to notice, the two men started singing along, swaying cheerily in time, as they stamped our passports. Roz and I studiously kept our faces straight, then grinned as we were waved though and gazed back at them, still swaying away. Very jolly indeed. We bought our absolutely final Aythaya wine at the rather nice airport bar, and mused that it had been a rather jolly place to be, even if it wasn't as interesting as we'd hoped, was a lot more touristy than we'd hoped, the biking wasn't quite as enjoyable as we'd hoped, and being in a tour group had made us feel less connected to the country, and less prone to adventure than usual. We were unanimously glad to have chopped two nights off the end of our holiday - and I can't remember ever feeling like that before! But we haven't really chopped it off; merely relocated. After this interminable, Groundhog Day-ish journey ("What time is it? 8:30pm on Thursday. But I distinctly remember it being 8:30pm on Thursday when we had dinner at the Green Elephant, long ago?" We will be zooming home, changing our packing clothes from scorching to freezing, and boarding the train to Philadelphia for the culmination of our holiday - and of course the final blog. Stay tuned!

In which Roz and Layla cycle, eat ice cream, and see lots of temples

By Roz

Up again for another early morning (alas) our day started with a bolted breakfast (disappointing) and then an hour long drive (which would also have been depressing, were I not listening to an audio version of The Colour by Rose Tremain which is excellent, albeit this makes me an unsociable companion).  We were then off for another long cycle, through villages and towns. It is striking that the enthusiasm of the Burmese for us remains high - no-one doesn't want to say hello. I'm ashamed to say that after the first hour or so of cycling my responses become less enthusiastic and a little more grunt-like. Fortunately our fellow tour group companions are nicer people (and probably better cyclists) and fly the flag for British cheerfulness for me after I flag. Flatter than usual, it was lovely to have Layla back cycling alongside me as we whizzed (wheezed) along. Our favourite moment from the cycle was at the moment we got lost. Uncertain whether to turn left or right at a junction, a fellow-cyclist whipped out a compass, stated firmly that we should be heading west and thus that we should turn left. We followed him and were delighted he turned out to be right (especially as others got lost). Layla in particular delighted in this scientific approach to decision making ...

Some might say 11am was a little early for lunch, but that didn't stop the plates of food from arriving in the rooftop restaurant in which our group was ensconced - or Layla and me from scoffing as much of our two favourite dishes as we could (one sort of sweet corn, and one green bean - both with something lovely done to them). After lunch, we cycled down to the river (passing pigs, somewhat to our surprise) and then hopped on boats for a 1 and a half hour cruise along the Irawaddy River to Bagan, where we were to be spending the next three nights. Unsurprisingly it turned out to be very lovely to be sat on a comfy boat, being transported along by someone else with beautiful scenery and books to read. The end of the boat ride turned out to be particularly picturesque, as we passed by some of the 2000 temples (many from the 12th century) in the area. We looked at each other and wondered if things were about to look up...

Arriving at our hotel, we found ourselves greeted with bowls of strawberry ice cream and then found we were to be staying in a large room (with a double bed - my insistence a few nights ago brought dividends for the rest of the holiday!) in a lodge / cabin next to the hotel's enticing pool. We felt very cheerful indeed and lost no time in heading to the pool for a swim. After a long time spent bobbing around, just as our skin was starting to get wrinkly, we headed back to our rooms to shower. Having collected our books, we headed to the hotel's bakery (not quite as charming as it sounds, but still nice) to eat more strawberry ice cream. I took the opportunity of wifi to start booking the next leg of our holiday (Philadelphia - recommendations welcome!) whilst Layla phoned her parents (and asked them to phone my mum - since I couldn't get through to her and there is no 3G for texting here) and read her book. It was then time for an early dinner and so we fled the group and pottered down to "restaurant row" and had a delightful evening drinking our favourite wine, eating paneer and chappatis in a very cheery outdoor Indian restaurant (delightfully sans fellow tour group members, and indeed, unusually for this country, without any tour groups at all!). We headed back early, though, not least because of the prospect of yet another early morning. I'm not ruling out rebellion before we leave...

But this morning it was really worth getting up early. Not just to avoid the heat and sun, but also because we were heading through the sand on our bikes to visit some of the Bagan temples. Bagan is likened to Ankor Watt or Machu Picchu in its enormity and importance. It was just fantastic to be there, with the place to ourselves (bar the rest of the group) for the first hour or so. The temples were spectacular: of varying sizes and ages, they were all unique (albeit variations on a theme! And there were many, many Buddhas within, of course.) and it was brilliant to clamber over and up them, and to gaze at the landscape - temples everywhere you looked - from the top. Better than Ankor Watt in many ways, we were so cheery to be there. 

After clambering through and over 6 or 7 temples, our guide suggested we head back and have lunch en route. We all expressed horror at the idea of lunch at 11.30 again, but agreed to a drink at a roadside cafe. After gulping down my lime soda, I became bored of waiting for the others (for which read: hungry and wanting to read my book) and so persuaded Layla to head off back with me on a self-guided mission home. Somewhat doubtful, but always a trooper, she agreed. I then had a genius idea - a diversion to lunch on restaurant row (which we would be passing). And so we found ourselves settling down in a delightful garden, with a really delicious lunch, accompanied by a honeydew lassi for Layla and a beer for me. We stayed there a long while, not least to have a second helping of the delicious home made vanilla ice cream and cashew nuts (this holiday has really been lacking ice cream till now!), but also reading. I was delighted to find that my book (The Piano Tuner) has the protagonist passing through the town we are currently in. Fun. After a couple of hours we headed back to the hotel for a swim, and we are now sitting on our cabin porch, and Layla is writing postcards. I don't regret for a moment that we have decided to cut out the last two days of our Burma trip which would have had us return to Yangon...but I am delighted at the lovely turn the holiday has taken. 

In which Layla and Roz follow Nellie the Elephant's road to Mandalay, and Layla falls off her bike

By Layla

After the fun of 8800 Buddhas came a pleasant enough 18 person dinner overlooking the lake and another early night - because we were to be standing to attention at 6am the following morning. A strange sort of holiday... But, having gulped down some speedy breakfast, we were duly on the bus and zooming towards the junction that marked the start of our cycle. This was another day euphemistically described as 'undulating'. Indeed, accurately - the entire thing involved going up a steep hill then down a steep hill, repeated interminably as we zoomed past pretty hilly scenery, little villages with waving children lining the road, local workers building the road (as we were forced repeatedly into the red dust at the side of the road I mused that this had lost its charm for me...) and always with a blazing hot sun. Not dissimilar to the day before.

Drama awaited as I took advantage of a precious downhill slope, zooming at an unfortunate angle over a pile of rocks that made up that part of the road - and skidded. As I crashed down onto the road, bicycle akimbo. I noted my good fortune that it didn't happen in front of one of the several local schools where the entire population of students watched us pass. Nevertheless, nearby cyclists and a few random locals crowded around me. Fortunately I hadn't done anything too drastic, though from everyone's expressions I can surmise that my elbow wound looked worse than (hopefully) it was. We pooled medical kits and soon I was on my way again, with multiple types of antiseptic dripping through my bandage. 

When we got to the next rest stop and everyone crowded round to see if I was okay, I decided to use the wounds as a front for my laziness (to be fair the jolting didn't make them happy). I climbed into the bus and soon found myself reading my book on a shady deck chair at the lunch destination, awaiting the cyclists. The fast ones appeared before long. Then the second bus appeared and deposited its load of everyone else, clearly those who had been scooped up in various stages of heat exhaustion along the way, except... Where was Roz?! Just as I began to feel really quite anxious, I saw something in the distance. Sure enough it was Roz, speeding up the hill towards us, complaining accurately that the 10k stage we'd been promised was actually 14k with no water stops in the blazing heat. I was impressed/scared as she dismounted and strolled to greet me!

After lunch the bus trundled us along a very winding path down the mountain for multiple hours and eventually into Mandalay. The guidebook says Mandalay's an anticlimax and this turned out to be true. There's a big fort in the middle but otherwise it's concrete and charmless modernity. Our hotel was a couple of kilometers from the centre, so after a side trip to a pharmacy to get me some bandages, we took a taxi to a vegetarian restaurant... And then, finding it to have no alcohol, crossed the street to the other family restaurant, the excellent Rainforest Cafe. We had tasty curry and some more Ayathaya wine in a lovely place, and were well pleased with our nice evening in Mandalay.

The next day we'd debated about whether to abscond from the tour and spend the day seeing Mandalay/at a swimming pool. But Mandalay didn't seem too tempting and the swimming pool looked potentially depressing so we ended up cycling as usual. We went along busy roads lining a smoggy Irawaddy River, waving to scruffy children, to a famous wooden bridge spanning the river. We climbed up and strolled along it. Very scenic and charming other than all the tourists. Afterwards some other cyclists declared rebellion and headed back into Mandalay in a taxi. We swithered several times, then eventually decided against joining them.

We spent the rest of the afternoon somewhat regretting our decision. Lots of the cycling was along busy roads, and when it got onto the country roads along the river, it was again, ahem, undulating. I got a puncture. The heat was immense. We got to our destination, site of the world's largest working bell, exhausted, and Roz and I naughtily skipped viewing the bell in favour of cold beers in a local cafe, before we all convened on deck chairs in a very pleasant boat and puttered comfortably back to Mandalay, where a tuk tuk awaited to convey us to our hotel.

With our afternoon free, Roz and I shunned the sights for an air conditioned drink in V Cafe/Skybar near the fort, and disclosed our anxieties that we don't love this trip: Burma isn't that exciting unless you really like repeatedly looking at millions of Buddha images. It's quite charmless having mass meals and sleeping in rubbish hotels. It's quite tiring/dull spending all day every day cycling. We missed our Layla and Roz adventures. We felt disinclined to spend ages pfaffing every time we went for a meal. It was annoying we couldn't stop at a nice cafe when we saw one. Perhaps tours weren't for us... And yet we still had almost a week to go! We drowned our sorrows with Myanmar beer and found a taxi driver who took us to A Taste of Mandalay (reasonably pleasant food) and JoJo Cafe for a sneaky ice cream, then to Mandalay's famous marionette theatre where Roz had to prod me awake multiple times though it was quite good, if reasonably incomprehensible... And we ended the evening in true Roz and Layla style at the local hospital, with our taxi driver leading the charge in search of a bandage for my arm - fun! Monks in the waiting room, medical notes written in school jotters, and an excellent bandage for me! Off home feeling cheery but musing on how to improve our holiday...

Of course we were up at the crack of dawn today, missing breakfast as the van awaited us at 6.30. And we were off again, this time bound for Monywa. Again, we drove for a couple of hours, then started cycling. After about 12k of the same sort of thing, in the sun with my injuries disliking being jolted, I was tempted on to the bus and sheepishly (but delightedly) watched as Roz and the others slogged along. I was proud/embarrassed/disconcerted to find that without me to keep pace with, Roz is a speed demon! Indeed, she was leading the entire group! I took a photo... And returned to my book. Our first stop was the world's tallest standing Buddha (and one of the world's tallest longest lying one - with a new, bigger one under construction!), set amid fields of identical smaller Buddha statues), and a temple with a little tower which we climbed. The site's called Bodhi Tataung. Next stop was Thamboddhaya Paya, a temple built by a monk who just didn't think there were enough Buddha statues around. He duly built one with about a million Buddhas in it, all over the walls and roof. A key feature of Burma: there can never be enough Buddhas (and nor can they ever be big enough). Motto: empty nook or cranny? Stick a Buddha in it!

After our temple fun, we cycled/drive to Hotel Monywa, our base for the evening. A quick lunch in the hotel restaurant, discussing how we didn't want to spend our last two days in the not-very-delightful Rangoon/Yangon, and then we sat down at the hotel computer. Rebellion was in the air as we typed a subversive e-mail to our friend. Perhaps the fact that the electricity went off three times while Roz was typing was an omen, but we chose to press on. The content of the email: "we want to go home 2 days early. We can't make phone calls. Please enact on our behalf." And thus our excellent friend did. 

After our emailing, we got in the bus (except for 4 deranged fellow cyclists who chose to cycle 2 and a half hours uphill in a million degrees of heat) and went off to visit the local attraction, ie Hpo Win Daung. There is a temple at the top of a hill, carved out of the hill, and quite cool (with many Buddhas within). And there is a huge complex of tiny 'caves' (really mostly indentations in the stone), all numbered, and each holding - you guessed it - at least one Buddha statue. Quite nice, if hot, climbing up the hill - scenic and pleasant, with lots of monkeys to entertain us, and we left just as the sun was setting over the hills.

Of course our tour guide again instructed us to eat in the hotel restaurant, and again we rebelled, hiring a tuk tuk to take us to the Tripadvisor-recommended Pleasant Garden restaurant. Which turned out to be quite pleasant. A crazy undulating bridge delivered us to a little island, upon which we were directed to our own little corner. The menu was fairly identical to every menu here, so Roz decided to branch out and go for ginseng and egg. I ordered vegetable vermicelli and braced myself for a sharing scenario... Sure enough, when what turned out to be a ginseng omelette appeared, Roz took a bite, declared it tasted of moisturiser (we subsequently decided perfume was more accurate), and duly fed some of it to an initially enthusiastic and thereafter reproachful skinny cat.

We came home, found our flights had been changed, and felt excited/scared/rebellious, and mostly impressed at our lovely friend's efficiency! So we leave on Thursday night instead of Saturday. And we will be extending our holiday US-style when we return. Stay tuned...