I left Hsipaw early in the morning to reach Shwebo, a small but historical interesting city 120km north of Mandalay, in the same day. I really didn’t want to spent another night in Mandalay. It worked out fine and I got into one of the numerous shaky buses that connects the two former burmese capitals with each other in a bumpy 3 hour ride. Usually Shwebo is not on the tourist map at all and I probably wouldn’t go there, too, but at the Shwedagon Paya in Yangon I got to know a nice english student named Jerry who invited me to his hometown. He expected me already at the bus station and was really excited that I really came to visit him and his hometown so he took a two-day timeout from work, borrowed a car and developed a big sightseeing plan for me, what I really 
appreciated due to my limited time that I was able to spent there. Unfortunately the government forbids local people to host foreigners so I checked in the only hotel that is open to tourists in town. It was really overpriced but Jerry insisted on paying the half of my accomodation (and every fucking expense that I had in the next two days – no discussion about that possible), so it was for me. What can I say about these two days? It was awesome, but with unpleasent sideeffects, too! The really positive thing was the time that I spent with Jerry. I met almost all of his friends and family members and spent the days with him cruising around from one sight to the next. In the evenings we either watched a movie (when there was no power cut), hung out in one of the few small beer stations or had great food.
For the negative thing I was just waiting to experience it in Myanmar and on the second day in Shwebo it finally happened: We recognised that government spies followed us. How we recognised that? It was not really difficult, always when we left one place someone who followed us before he approached Jerry very unsuspicious and asked him where we’re heading next and, oh surprise, at our next destination there were already people waiting for us. It became really obvious when we (or better Jerry) was warned that it could be dangerous for him to show around foreigners without an official tour guide license by a very harsh and unfriendly casual dressed man who finally showed his police ID after Jerry got into a discussion with him. It ended that Jerry had to drive home to get a 5$ note to prevent himself from further trouble. In the meanwhile when I was waiting for him I couldn’t hold back and began an angry discussion with this asshole (who spoke very good english), too. Probably not very smart in this country but in this situation it was just not possible for me to act different. Good luck that this didn’t result in 
any consequences for me. After this nice little meeting we went to Jerry’s old university and, another surprise, a handful of men showed up out of nowhere when we were just about to enter the campus and hindered us from doing so. Later when we bought my bus ticket back to Mandalay another guy came with a pen and paper to Jerry and asked which bus I take and where I go to – insane! As much as I would have loved to hang out with Jerry for a longer time I was very happy when I finally left Shwebo, to have spies following you all the time just made me feel very very uncomfortable. Otherwise Shwebo is a nice city with a some nice pagodas, a monk who died 30 years ago and transformed into stone together with two trees, a nearby nice lake and cobras. Unfortunately I didn’t see snakes but the cities reputation for monster cobras is well-known all over Myanmar. “You go to Shwebo? Watch out for cobras, bro!”
Thanks Jerry for your great hospitality!