Well, we're officially in Myanmar (country #7!), and Matt's 2 pairs of underwear have held up admirably.

This is a country like no other that we've visited. Aside from the government-imposed restrictions on internet access (that's why this post is being copied & pasted by my mom - Thanks Pam!), already a few things are abundantly clear.

1) Other SE Asian countries may like their temples, but Myanmar LOVES it's temples. We must have seen 100+ temples in the last 12 weeks (has it really been that long? wow.), but nothing I've ever seen compares to the Shwedagon Temple in Yangon (do a google search for it, it's amazing). It's got something like 1800 carats of diamonds adorning it's "hti" (top spire), and is said to be covered in more gold than is contained in all of the vaults in England. Burmese people are known to exaggerate, but if you saw it you might actually believe this one.

2) The people here are amazing. We've only been here a few days, but already we've met more friendly, helpful people than we could have ever expected. Maybe it's just because there aren't that many other westerners who come here, but the locals seem genuinely excited to see you and greet you with a friendly "Min-ga-la-ba" (hello) and a big, red, betel-stained smile. On our first day in Yangon, I (Matt) wasn't feeling great and went back to rest at our hotel, and almost immediately a local English teacher approached Lia and took her on an all-day tour of some of the less well known and harder to reach sights of the city. Anywhere else you'd be suspicious, but here such an encounter seems genuinely motivated by good-natured friendliness. We also spent a day with a local English class, where we were peppered with questions by young Burmese kids spending their Sunday voluntarily attending classes, and were treated to far too much food by our hosts:
first the abbot at the monastery fed us, then we were taken back to the teacher's home and her family fed us. This is all in addition to the breakfast we'd had at the hostel, and all consumed before 11am!

3) Men here wear skirts. Well, they're actually called "Lungyi's", but they look like skirts. As further evidence of the Burmese people's honesty, since Lungyi's have no pockets people here actually walk around with their wallets, car keys, or just straight-up wads of cash hanging out of waist of their lungyi's and don't give a second thought to at being stolen.

4) Matt looks silly wearing a Lungyi.

That's all for now. We'll try to keep updating the blog via Pam in the future as the circumstances warrant.