Kalaw, Myanmar

We are in the Burmese hill country which is much cooler than Bagan (80 degrees).

One interesting thing about Kalaw is that there are a number of Indian and Nepali families here–many who came as scouts or workers with the British army after WWI.

There is a lot of British architecture and two great places to eat. It is a nice town so we are staying here a while.  We are staying at the Golden Kalaw which has a nice view down into the town.  $8 a night.  Sweet.  We have also found some great deals in the market and have met some people from one of the Ruby mines.  Burma is one of the places with the best Rubies and Jade.  More on all this later.  Don’t worry–we weren’t scammed into buying some Rubies.

Tomorrow we are going hiking for two days to a famous viewpoint and to see two caves with paintings on the walls from the Bronze Age (about 6000 years ago).

Francie just beat me in Scrabble by 200 points.  It makes me sad.  I would just go read a book but we have exhausted all the English books we brought with us.  I finished Beloved, Seabiscuit and History of Love on this trip.