Raphael Kessler

Myanmar or Burma is an extremely interesting place and has some lovely things to see. However it is somewhere with horrendous human rights abuses and most of the populace are kept in poverty by a corrupt military junta. This however is not the place for a political essay, but is just a cursory glimpse of what I saw in the country.

When I first went to Myanmar it was from Mae Sot in Thailand to Myawaddy, a small border trading post. The comparative poverty between the two countries was very apparent, the truck in the picture below was one of the better looking vehicles in town.

In Yangon (formerly Rangoon) there are several impressive buildings, but pride of place must go to the massive 2,500 year old Shwedagon Pagoda (photo below). The 107 metre high structure is covered in about  60 tonnes of gold leaf, the gilded hti on the top is hung with gold and silver bells and studded with rubies sapphires and topaz, even the weather vein has 1,100 diamonds encrusted in it. On top of that sits the diamond orb encrusted with 4,350 and crowned with a 76 carat diamond. It's surprising no-one has robbed the thing yet. 

In the small town of Kalaw one can see how the farmers do not have the moeny to buy the simplest machinery, their farming methods have not changed in centuries (photo 1). In the nearby Pindaya cave there are thousands of buddhas (photo 2). The men of the Pa-O tribe are easily recognised by there colourful turbans. I also saw a festive procession of young boys being taken away to become monks (photo 4). Apparently some families get themselves into serious debt in order to make their sons look fancy on the asupicious occassion.

From Kalaw I went on a trek with a guy called Eddie who administered first aid and medicines to the local hill tribes people. The first villages we visited were of the Paluang tribe (photos 1 - 4). We then went onto visit a Taungyoe village where the people looked and lived very differently.

At Inle lake there are men who row using there legs in order that they can keep there hands free for fishing (photos 1 & 2). The lake itself was as flat as a mirror much of the time (photo 3). In the middle of the lake is a monastery where the monks have taken to training cats to jump through hoops (photo 4). I went and saw cheroots being made (photo 5) and had a go myself and didn't do too badly at it, although considering the women who do it for a profession earn about thirty US cents a day for their trouble it isn't really much of a career move. Some of the men in the area are completely covered in Buddhist tattoos (photo 6). In Nyaung Shwe I saw  couple of guys riding buffaloes (photo 7), one of which was an albino which is unusual (that is the buffalo not the man).

In the city of Mandalay the Mahamuni image (photo 1) has been covered by several inches of gold leaf and is getting larger all the time. Moustache Lu Maw (photo 2) is a comedian who's cousin and brother have been in prison for years doing hard labour for telling a bad joke, which is harsh by anybody's standards. All around the country are rather Orwellian unfriendly signs telling people how to behave (photo 3). The children are not exempt from working it was not unusual to see very small children selling things to tourists like this girl selling cheroots (photo 4). The children  do look after each other though and it was not strange to see a four year old looking after a younger sibling (photo 5).

The city of Bagan has literally thousands of temples dotted around. It was the former capital of the country but only the temples were built of brick. They are of different styles and different sizes and can be seen going off in all directions (photos 1 - 6).