After visiting the temple, we got back on our boat and headed into another floating village. This one was even more photogenic than the first and I shot another 200 photos. By now the sun was at its hottest, but I still had no interest in holding an umbrella while trying to [read more…]
Village Life on Inle Lake…Yes, it Includes Souvenir Shops
After puttering down the lake for a while, we eventually arrived at the village of Ywama to visit a local market. Our driver parked our boat and dropped us off at a long, covered walkway lined with makeshift stalls manned by local vendors. The vendors might have been local, but [read more…]
Real and Fake Leg Rowing Fishermen on Inle Lake
“Skip it. It’s too touristy.” If you’ve done any traveling, you’ve probably heard this phrase. Some travelers shun any destination or activity seen as popular and will even go so far as to berate others for not doing the same. They don’t seem to understand that places become touristy for one simple reason: [read more…]
A Good Day in Hsipaw Spent With Kids, Cows and Trash
If you spend a reasonable amount of time in any country, visiting that country’s top tourist attraction will never be the most memorable thing you do while there and in many cases, it will actually be quite disappointing. Instead, the best moments are unplanned and generally come when you least expect them. Knowing this, I’ve […]
Bagan by Horse Cart: The Best of Three Bad Options
When most people think of Myanmar, they imagine a hazy, flat plain with hundreds of reddish-brown stupas poking up above the patchy tree cover. The area they are picturing is called Bagan. It lies in Myanmar’s dusty central plains on the banks of the Irrawaddy River and is characterized by not hundreds, but thousands—over 2200, […]
Hanging off the Side of Mandalay’s Crowded Public Transport
You’ll find a lot of options for getting around in Myanmar, but only the most expensive offer any comfort. Most are crowded at best, like the pickup truck above on the streets of Mandalay, and downright painful at worst. I was stupid lucky enough to try just about all of them during my time in […]
Yangon’s Black Market Money Changers
When I went to Myanmar in 2011, the official government exchange rate was around 7 kyats per US dollar. A bottle of water went for 200 to 300 kyats and a cheap restaurant meal was around 1000 to 2000. That would make this the most expensive country on earth. Luckily, I read up on Myanmar […]
Wine Tasting in Myanmar at Inle Lake’s Red Mountain Estate
The Inle Lake area of Myanmar was my favorite of all the places I visited during my month in the country. While there, you can take a boat out on the lake, bike around the lake, walk to the lake……ok, so it doesn’t take too long to realize there’s not much to do that doesn’t […]
Arrival at Indawgyi Military Base
The journey, as I mentioned, was horrible—over five hours of constant pain as we traversed boulders, got stuck in small lakes of mud, slid down muddy hillsides and forded numerous rivers—all features of the “road”. At one point a bridge literally collapsed beneath us. Planks were dislodged and fell into the river below, leaving [read more…]
Traditional Burmese Happy Meal
I took this over a year ago, but despite the picture, until this week, Myanmar was one of only three countries to not have coke. Thankfully, Coca Cola has decided to change this now that sanctions have been eased, providing the Burmese people with all the luxuries of the West, such as hyperactive kids and […]