Myanmar

Myanmar (Burma) still wears its traditional longyi even as its neighbours abandon their saris and sarongs for Levis and miniskirts. lts holy men are more revered than its rich or its famous, and in the countryside, where rice paddies are still farmed using water buffalo, it might be the 16 th century as the 21st. These Romantic images are a traveller’s dream, but they exist in the presence of oppression and hardship. Myanmar is ruled by a harsh military regime, and human rights are widespread, despite resistance by Aung San Suu Kyi and other democracy activists. Many travelers choose not to travel to Myanmar because of the current political situation there.

November to February ( the cool season) – or when the military regime shuts up shop

Taking a trip tp Bagan, where thousands of ancient temples rise spectacularly out of a vast, treeless plain Joining the pilgrimage to Kyaiktiya, a shining golden boulder stupa perched on a mountaintop cliff Drifting on pristine lnle Lake, home to floating villages, water gardens and monasteries Browsing the rollicking night market (and dodging the fruit bats) in riverside Pathein

Read Freedom from Fear-Other Writings-essays by and about Aung San Suu kyi; George Orwell’s Burmese Days-the classic novel of British colonialism; Paul Theroux’s The Great Railway Bazaar-a funny account of the author’s train trip through 1970s Burma

Listen to traditional rhythmic Burmese music or original compositions by Burmese rock Zaw Win Htut

Watch John its brutal suppression; Kon lchikawa’s The Burmese Harp, a beautiful 1950s black- white film

Eat thouq (spicy saland with lime juice) or peh-hin-ye (lentil soup)

Drink Mandalay Beer or htan ye (fermented palm juice)

Bama hsan-jin (‘Burmese-ness’, a quiet, modest and cultured quality)

Golden buddhas; jade; opium; Aung San Kyi; ethnic embroidery; the military regime; the road to Mandalay

Myanmar’s other famous dissidents (with jail time to prove it) are side-splitting comedians The Moustache Brothers’s Myanmar’s opium crop is rivaled only by Afghanistan’s

For most Burmese, Buddhism is the guiding principle, and life centres around the monastery. A typical Burmese values meditation, gives freely, and his or her lot as the consequence of sin or merit in a past life. The Burmese value the quiet, subtle and indirect over the loud, obvious and direct. They also love a good laugh, and puns are considered a high form of humour.