Day Six - What a wash out: 21kms cycled

The Emerald Land Hotel is one of those establishments that you expect to find described in dog eared editions of Let's Go as a 'comfortable place to stay, possibly past its best'.
Somehow nothing here looked quite as inviting as it might. But for all its faded glory the offer of fresh cooked eggs in the dining hall was a good start for the day.

So it was a leisurely start for us all (relatively speaking), only needing to be on the bus at 8am, to travel out of town to the lock-up where our bikes had been stored over night so we would avoid negotiating the madness of the Mandalay traffic.

En route the threatening skies opened, dumping vast amounts of incessant rain at tropical force. Incredulous looks all around as Jim asked us to leave the bus. We ran the 100 yards to the sanctuary of the warehouse getting drenched in the process. We admired the lock-up for as long as we could. Longman's bedding in the corner suggesting that this was where he slept with his wife and baby who we also met.

With the rain showing no signs of abating we eventually set off. I guess once you are soaked you can't get any wetter.

It was an interesting ride nonetheless, through little backstreets with bustling businesses, although dodging the overflowing potholes meant that you had to keep a beady eye on the road ahead. 7km in and we stopped at the U Pain Bridge - the longest teak bridge in the world. I never thought I would say I was cold, but getting off the bikes to explore the bridge sapped any warmth we had worked up on the short cycle.
Today was to be a day of executive decisions. Jim and I quickly agreed to ditch the idea of cycling on a local island given that we'd had enough of impenetrable quagmires on Monday, and so we rode on through the town, eventually heading onto a more major road out of town.

Sadly this was not much fun. Although flat, the continuing rain made for a challenging ride, as we vied for road space between the ever growing puddles with lorries, cars and scooters.

Time for another executive decision: we'd carry on for another 5km and then stop for lunch, and at that point call it a day on the cycling. While this would leave us some 35km short of our target, it was unanimous and popular decision. Our last few kms did present us with a couple of hills and were not without drama: half way up the penultimate him yours truly suffered the saddlebolt shearing, in a replay of the same event in Cambodia. Happily I avoided impaling myself on the seat pillar, and leapt on Wallace's bike to complete the ride.

Still damp, and requesting the fans be turned off as a result, we felt triumphant as we sat down to a  lunch that started with delicious spring rolls. They didn't last long!

As we finished eating, the drivers and mechanics floored us all by presenting back the tip of $200 dollars we had collected for them.

They wanted us to add it to the fundraising for the children back in Yangon. When you consider the tip probably makes up a significant percentage of their pay for looking after us so well over the week, the magnitude of the generosity of this move was a bit overwhelming.

We lined up for a joyous team photo,

and then stripped the bikes of all the accessories with had lovingly fixed onto them in Bagan on Monday. Mudded and travel worn, many of us were happy to donate them to Wallace for the benefit of locals.

Inevitably the rain stopped at the point, but in the bus the smell of damp cyclists and cycle outfits was something special! Heads nodded as we drove along a beautiful stretch along the river bank to the Mingun Pahtodawgyi, a huge brick structure built by King Bodawpaya in 1790. But I'm not completely sure as the slight air of delirium that was settling over the whole team made it almost impossible to understand 99's explanation as to why it was never completed, despite his very best and persistent efforts.

Equally persistent were the souvenir sellers, who managed a brisk trade in longyis and hats.

In actual fact the temple , that promised so much delivered very little, but the second largest bell  in the world (a very proud boast repeated many times), weighing in at at 90,000 kgs, was quite a sight.

We strolled to the waters edge and boarded our boat by narrow plank. Happily no mishaps or unexpected swims and we easily settled down into comfy cane seats for a very pleasant cruise downhill the river.

At the hotel we had a couple of hours to put wet clothes into plastic bags for the journey ahead, trying to avoid as much cross-contamination with the last dry clothes as possible.

At 19:30 we boarded our faithful bus to Ko's Kitchen, a trendy looking Thai restaurant.  for our celebration meal. So trendy it had one of those kitchen you could look into and witness the full experience of the flaming pans!

Sam chose a Robbie Williams theme to thank Wallace and 99, and we all received our well deserved medals. A happy team boarded to bus back to the hotel for a final celebratory beer.

One could say the evening had gone off with a bang, but not as big as the exploding bottle of Myanmar beer that went off in Emma's lap. That seemed to be a good cue to go to bed and get as much sleep as possible before the long slog home and the trip to the orphanage.

Well, not quite all went to bed. 'Uncle' Wallace and the two boys were still enjoying the pool. Olympic freestyle snorkeling another of his many talents!