We lost a day during the transit, having crossed the international date line, so it is now January 17 in Bangkok.

Although we both took a sleep aid last night we were up at 4:30 AM local time, ready to tackle the world. Luckily the breakfast buffet is open from 3- 10:30 AM.

We spent the rest of the morning reading, writing a blog entry and napping again in an attempt to have our bodies catch up to the local time zone. We left for the airport about 11:15 AM and leisurely worked our way through getting boarding passes and checking luggage, clearing security ( no TSA precheck over here) and immigration as we were flying internationally to the country of Myanmar. We even had time to grab a sandwich. Our flight to Myanmar left on time at 1:45 PM and an hour later we were landing in the capitol, Yangon.

Compared to the hustle and bustle of the Bangkok airport, the Yangon airport is much smaller and quieter. It was easy to navigate and to clear their immigration. A bit of trivia is that the Myanmar tim e zone is only 1/2 hour different than Bangkok, not the usual one hour change normally associated with time zones. Don’t ask me why that is. Obviously some wizard decided that was the best way to handle the issue when time zones were originally set up.

As promised we were met by our private tour guide, Nyi Nyi, and his driver, as we emerged from baggage claim. It was a quick 20 minute drive to our hotel for the next three days,the  Melia Yangon, part of a Spanish hotel chain. The hotel is impressive and our room is equally impressive with a view of Inya Lake, one of the major attractions here in Yangon. We know we will enjoy our stay here.

We chose to have a light dinner at the hotel and it also was equally impressive and reasonably priced.

Fellow travelers, Gerry and Sue Bishop, are due to land at 11:45 PM tonight. We told Nyi Nyi to tell them not to wake us when they arrive!

Tomorrow our formal tour of Myanmar begins.