The bus took me into Mandalay and straight out again - this is not the
exotic Mandalay of Kipling's dreams (and they were dreams for he never
actually went there) but a heaving polluted city of several million! It was difficult to see more that 500 yards because of the smo
I hopped on a train to Bagan - a huge hot dusty plain with thousands of temples - relics of an Ancient 11th century civilisation and one if the most photogenic places I have every visited - hence all the photos!! So scroll through them and I'll sign off at the end...
So it was back to Yangon for a few days and time to reflect on my time in Myanmar It's a country undergoing rapid change - almost freewheeling towards it in fact - maybe a little out of control... I did think about coming here on my last visit to Asia in 2009 but at that time they were still lots of political prisoners here and the terrible behaviour of the government after Cyclone Nargis (they blocked visas for foreign aid workers and people starved to death in the Irrawady delta) put me off - it would have be nice to see Myanmar before the great changes but this is also a nice time to come before the inevitable commercialisation and even worse westernisation occur - one thing I feel that won't change is the spirit of the people - my memories of Myanmar are dominated by that
I hopped on a train to Bagan - a huge hot dusty plain with thousands of temples - relics of an Ancient 11th century civilisation and one if the most photogenic places I have every visited - hence all the photos!! So scroll through them and I'll sign off at the end...
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| Filling up the balloon |
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| Ready to fly |
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| Monks checking us out |
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| The ever smiling Burmese |
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| Took me ages to train that bird to fly across the sun... |
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| Heading Home |
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| Golden evening light |
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| Down by the Irrawaddy |
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| Watching sunrise at the temples |
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| Jasmine Flower Seller at the temple |
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| Collecting Alms - early morning Bagan |
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| Novice Monk |
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| Watching the sunrise... |
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| Baby on board! |
So it was back to Yangon for a few days and time to reflect on my time in Myanmar It's a country undergoing rapid change - almost freewheeling towards it in fact - maybe a little out of control... I did think about coming here on my last visit to Asia in 2009 but at that time they were still lots of political prisoners here and the terrible behaviour of the government after Cyclone Nargis (they blocked visas for foreign aid workers and people starved to death in the Irrawady delta) put me off - it would have be nice to see Myanmar before the great changes but this is also a nice time to come before the inevitable commercialisation and even worse westernisation occur - one thing I feel that won't change is the spirit of the people - my memories of Myanmar are dominated by that
