Considering the nightmarish bus ride that it avoided, the flight was smooth and pleasant. We were deposited at Yangon’s domestic terminal - the dingy disorganized half of the airport that I knew had to exist somewhere… To (belatedly) celebrate Valentines day, I had booked a room at the lush Kandawgyi Palace Hotel. It turned out to be really nice: a great location overlooking Kandawgyi Lake and all the luxury fixings. We made the mistake of having dinner at the attached Chinese restaurant, however, instead of the highly recommended French one. And what a mistake it was…

After giving a sad farewell to Pui in the morning, I lapsed into the worst bout of food poisoning yet. I checked out late, leaving the bathroom, err, not exactly as I found it. Sorry guys.

So the plan was to take advantage of the hotel’s special service of withdrawing cash using my credit card since I was out of cash at this point, but it turned out that this service doesn’t exist. Feeling too ill to handle the situation, I paid the bill, used the last scrap of my cash to get a very cheap room in a guesthouse downtown, and lost another day to sweaty fever nightmares.

Thankfully, I managed to get it sorted the next day. For future reference: the Sedona Hotel can withdraw cash from your Visa or Mastercard through a Singaporean account for a reasonable percentage fee. The sickness started to fade and I was ready to get moving again so I booked a bus ticket to Bagan, and a one-way flight back to Bangkok from Yangon for March 1st.

Also for future reference: The noodles at 999 Shan Noodle stand near Sule Pagoda are really good. And they won’t make you sick!