As I suspected, I’m definitely going to be doing nothing until I depart on Saturday. I was hoping that either today or tomorrow I could hire a moto of my own and zip off out of the city for a trip around some temples and a wildlife sanctuary. Unfortunately, this requires leaving your passport as a deposit… and mine’s at the Myanmar embassy awaiting a visa.

So my only mission was a quick trip to the post office to send those paintings home. At $13 I’d have been as well holding onto them and bringing them home in June, but there’s always the possibility that Australian immigration might have kicked off about them as they were painted on a wooden backboard.

Last night I got talking to a nice Israeli guy, Michael. He’s old for an Israeli backpacker – 32 – but enjoying himself a lot. Like me, he’s generally got no plan for anywhere until he arrives. I bumped into him again today, but I at first ignored his cries of “Hello! Hello!” as I thought he was one of the million moto drivers trying to get my attention!

Until this morning there was also a woman from the UK who’d cycled most of the way here, but was bussing out to Thailand as her visa was almost expired. In the past she’s cycled around most of India and has been put of Bhutan because of the price. I told her about the company that Hans and I went through and now she’s pencilling in a trip for next year.

The only other person in the dorm I’ve seen is an older gent, but I’m not sure where he’s from other than that English isn’t his first language and that he really, really, pretty please with sugar on top, shouldn’t sleep naked in the dorm. For the love of whatever deity you choose to worship. Unless you’re gorgeous and female (and don’t mind me taking photos), sleeping on top of the covers in a (shared, especially) dormitory is not really cool.

So I’m whiling the time away trying not to spend cash. This means buying grub (and insect repellant) from the supermarket and sitting around watching the final season of The Shield. Thankfully I’ve a load of films and TV shows on my laptop so I won’t run out.

A reminder to travellers to also shop around for stuff. In the supermarket alone, I found seven or eight different “manufacturers” of bottled water in the fridge. Prices varied from around $2 to 45c for 1.5l. Don’t pick up the first thing, especially in a new country when you don’t know what stuff should cost.

At least the weather’s good.