Burma (Myanmar)Travels 2001
These images come from the last leg of my 6 month 'winterless' journey across Asia in 2000/2001. January and February in Burma are cool, pleasant times.
This leg of the journey was exceptional for two reasons. First, it was the only one to involve air travel, because all land borders were closed, and the only way into and out of the country was by air. Second, unlike my travels through other countries, where my general objective was to get from one side to the other, Burma was an excursion, beginning in Rangoon, travelling up to Mandalay (overland) then back to Rangoon again (by boat down the Irrawaddy), with another side jaunt up the Bay of Bengal to visit Sitwe.
Schwedagon Pagoda
Temple spires in the Schwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon (Yangon).
Buddhas
Buddha images in the Schwedagon Pagoda.
Central Rangoon
A quiet street in the centre of Rangoon.
Safe Crossing
People piling in a pick-up truck, the most common form of distance transport in Burma. I took the picture for the sign, of a man wearing a longyi, the Burmese sarong, which is the most common form of clothing for men as well as women.
Kyaiktiyo Pagoda
One of the great pilgrimage sites of Burma, the hanging rock of Kyaiktiyo Pagoda is said to be perched on a strand of the Buddha's hair. During my visit, it was surrounded by equally precarious scaffolding, as the rock underwent a repaint.
Kyaiktiyo Pagoda
A close up of the hanging rock.
Kyaik Pun
Two of four Buddhas statues at Kyaik Pun Paya at Bago (paya is the Burmese word for pagoda).
Bago Buddha
A close up of one of the Buddha statues. This kind of bamboo scaffolding is common all over Asia. It is as strong and sturdy are the regular metal type; it just tends to look more precarious. The statue, at 30 m. high, dwarfs the repairman.
Shwethalyaung Buddha
Burmese monks praying to the reclining Buddha at Bago. The statue, dating from 994 A.D., is 55 m. in length.
Palace at Mandalay
A palace building at sunset.
Mingun Temple
The temple is an incomplete stupa (a dome-shaped structure containing Buddhist relics), built in 1790 by King Bodawpaya. The cracks are from an earthquake which stuck in 1839.
Bagan
The temple studded landscape of Bagan in northern Burma. Most of the temples (over 2000 of them) date from the 11th to 13th centuries, when there were over 10,000 in the city.
Sunset at Bagan
Sunsets are particularly splendid at Bagan. This one silhouettes a bullock-drawn cart and driver, heading home after a day's work in the fields.
Sunset on the Irrawaddy
I took a ferry down the Ayewaddy (Irrawaddy) from Magwe to Pyay. It was supposed to be a day trip, but the ferry arrived late, and got moored on a sandbar halfway. We were stuck there for 48 hours until the river was high enough to allow us passage on. Those two nights sleeping on the deck of the ferry, without blankets, with only short-sleeves on, were the coldest nights I have ever spent in my life. But at least the views were nice.
Another sunset
Another view of the setting sun from the ferry to Pyay.
Pyay
A giant Buddha statue at night in the town of Pyay. The spire of a neighbouring temple is just visible to the right.
The Bay of Bengal
A view of the sea on a ferry journey from Rangoon to Sittwe and Mrauk-U.
Waiting for the Ferry
A queue of people, waiting to get aboard.
Dawn at Mrauk-U
The view from the ferry at dawn, as I was about to leave Mrauk-U, another temple-studded area of Burma (several misty spires are visible in the distance).
Move on...
Go to the next Gallery section: China.
Go back...
Go back to the previous Gallery section: India.
Delhi Deadlines by Sheldon Smith
A washed out journalist, posted to India to cover a bloody election campaign, uncovers truths about his son's life - and death - in the country, truths that test loyalties forged in the war zones of Bosnia and Rwanda. A fiercely evocative narrative of modern-day India, filled with the clamour and hot stinks of its capital, this is a novel of death woven through with life.
"The writing is very very good... the mysteriousness of Wyndham's death and the narrator's involvement will entice the reader to keep reading." - 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) Expert Reviewer
