The Southeast Asia Travel Specialists Since 1999
The fascinating, yet rarely-visited town of Monywa lies just to the west of Mandalay in Burma’s (Myanmar’s) Sagaing Division. As usual, on our Southeast Asia tours, the issue isn’t which destinations to include but rather which ones time restraints force us to omit. There are myriad wonderful sites to be seen but if you included everything the tour would last…
Burmese ghosts, or nats as they are known locally, are spirits of people who died under tragic circumstances and who have remained earthbound so….what, in English, we would call ghosts. However, in Burma/Myanmar they take on a whole other significance and have shrines, statues, images, festivals dedicated to them. There’s even an ‘official’ list of the country’s 37 major recognised…
The previous post was mainly to show happy campers enjoying an All Points East Burma tour and so hopefully incite a new booking or two; Burma tour photos II is a more self-indulgent collection of our own personal favourite images from our recent tour. So in approximate chronological order………… Another train photo taken on Rangoon’s circular line tour. The colourful,…
Bagan sunsets and sunrises. The harsh light of Bagan can make temple photography during the middle of the day somewhat hard work and for your more atmospheric and photogenic opportunities, you’ll be restricted to those relatively short early morning and late afternoon times. Don’t worry during the intervening period there are more manageable village and rural life subjects since villages,…
Photographing Bagan – a few tips. Estimates of the precise figure vary but suffice to say there is the best part of 2,000 temples, pagodas, stupas, chedis and monasteries scattered across the wide plain between the Irrawaddy to the east and the range of low hills to the west. Differences between the categories of religious sites can also be somewhat…
Burma When’s the best time to go? A frequently asked question but not an easily answered one and at the risk of doing some unapologetic fence-sitting we’d say every season has its pros and cons. Broadly speaking Burma’s climate falls into 3 general seasons: rainy, dry cool and dry hot, though of course in such a large and geographically varied…
No, would be our easy answer as with regards photographing local people in Burma! Increasingly in Burma’s tourist hotspots, you will see local people posing for photographs in return for money and to our minds, this is a habit that shouldn’t be encouraged. If you don’t want your photo taken then suffice to say so; we don’t feel it should…
Here’s another selection of excellent Burma tour pictures from a recent Discover Burma tour taken by Wi for your perusal. Burma’s certainly a photographer’s paradise and as usual, Wi returned with literally thousands of images so after making a tricky selection we’ll split our favourites into landscape and portrait posts. So, without further waffle – a few of the landscapes……..
A selection of Burma rainy season photos. Just finished another great Burma tour but as usual internet possibilities are limited over there so with a fairly massive mail backlog to clear we’ll stick to a post with lots of pics and minimal text, (phew!) Rainy season travel meant a small group size though we’ve already highlighted the benefits of travelling…
A selection of Wi’s Burma photographs taken on her smartphone shows you don’t need a great camera to take great pix – just a good eye and the right place at the right time we guess. There are some awesome Burma photos here but the post is a bit of an excuse really to let everyone know that you can…
Portraits of Burma is a short selection of photographs by Wi, taken on her recent Discover Burma tour, “…quite unlike any land you know about”. (A quote from Kipling of course!) So, in no particular order and without further ado… The ubiquitous pink-clad Buddhist nuns are a sight that you won’t see elsewhere in Southeast Asia despite Burma sharing its…
A selection of Peter’s Burma photographs. Many thanks to Peter for allowing us to share a selection of his superb Burma photographs taken on a 2012 Burma tour. In no particular order then with all photos taken by Peter Tilsley and additional comments from All Points East………… First up an atmospheric dusk shot of the highly picturesque and photogenic U…
After exploring Bagan and its amazing temples we headed east across the central Burmese plain for the distant Shan Plateau and the small market town of Kalaw. A spectacular visit en-route – an hour’s drive from Bagan – is the dramatic and sacred Mount Popa. Actually a dormant volcano some 1,500 meters high, (c. 4,500 ft), Mt Popa itself is…
Great set of photographs taken on Wi’s recent Burma tour; Discover Burma (Myanmar). The ancient sites at Mingun aren’t usually on the itinerary but since the boat company had seen fit to cancel the Mandalay to Bagan service, siting low numbers during low season, Wi organized an alternative boat trip up the Irrawaddy to visit the riverside site of Mingun…
Some portraits of Myanmar, taken on our recent, 2-week recce trip to Burma (Myanmar). Internet access is, to say the least, limited and since we’ve been a bit rushed off our feet since our return to the Chiang Mai office so we’ll just stick up a few Burma photos for today and ‘normal’ service will be resumed asap! Actually took…