Day 30: Bagan to Inle Lake, Myanmar
by Oliver Smith

Being a Brit, I’m aware my country doesn’t have the proudest history on the world stage. Not so long ago, the British conquered half the planet – including the country we’re in today, Myanmar – looting natural resources and gathering taxes, before going home and leaving traditions like cricket and afternoon tea as slightly crap consolation prizes.
But there is one thing that makes me very proud – one British contribution to humanity that I think is valued more highly than Shakespeare or railways or David Beckham, for instance.
And that’s Mr Bean.
Mr Bean is one of those wonderful, rare subjects almost the whole planet can agree on. I’ve seen Mr Bean bumbling across TV screens in four continents. A nice man even once engaged me in a detailed analysis of ‘Mr Beans’ on a long-distance bus ride in Turkey. Upon learning I was British, he studied me with eager anticipation, as if I might suddenly fall down a manhole or, perhaps, walk into a door.
Today we bumped into Mr Bean in another corner of the world: in a canteen at the village of Nwang She on the edge of Inle Lake, the place from which we travelled today from Bagan. It felt odd but also comforting and reminiscent of home to be watching Mr Bean on a flickering TV as the crickets croaked in the gloom outside.
Everyone loved it. One local old lady was wiping tears from her eyes, holding her stomach in pain as she rocked back and forth on her chair. For a while at least, our waiter was too concerned with how exactly Mr Bean would escape from inside a letterbox to take our order. Not that we minded, of course. We were wondering the same thing.
The day in statistics:
- Miles covered: 222
- Mr Bean episodes watched: 2
- Burmese chicken curries eaten: 1









