The Southeast Asia Travel Specialists Since 1999
Every part of Lake Inle; whether watching the golden sunrise creep over the mountain tops, visiting the stilt villages or exploring the astonishing floating gardens are obvious highlights of any Myanmar (Burma) tour so we’ll narrow our 2-day Lake programme down to what’s probably our favourite part – the morning visit to In Dein. The spectacular forest of ancient stupas, colourful…
Generally included in any standard Inle Lake tour itinerary we reckon this fascinating site, located slightly upriver at the southwestern corner of the Lake, is one of the highlights of the region. The boat trip is picturesque, the surrounding scenery bucolic, the ancient pagodas highly photogenic and the friendly local Pa-O people welcoming and fun. In Dein is a village,…
Located in Burma’s western Shan State and famous for mountain scenery, floating gardens and the unusual rowing techniques of local fishermen Lake Inle is certainly one of Burma’s top tourist destinations. Either a very long drive from Mandalay or Bagan – or even longer from Rangoon – most visitors inevitably arrive by Heho Airport, an hour or so from the…
Burma cottage industries – a few photos and descriptions from our Burma (Myanmar) tours. Guide: “Ok, next I’ll take you to visit some people who make rubber bands”. “Really?! And that’s interesting to see is it?” (It’s hot, the ‘roads’ are appalling and I’m carting around heavy camera gear.) Guide. “Yes – everybody likes it”. (Not convinced) “Errr ok then…
The Padaung people of Burma, more commonly known as the ‘Long-Neck Karen’, live in Kayah State in northeastern Burma and though the provincial capital Loikaw is now officially open for tourism it’s still very difficult to get to so your most likely contact with them would be at one of their lakeside souvenir stalls at Inle. The pros and cons…
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…
The second batch of photos taken by Wi on her recent 2-week Discover Burma tour includes some of her wonderful portraits of a few of the characters encountered en-route and, in case you missed the previous set of landscape photos, here’s the link. The Pa-O, like many people in Burma, are big fans of the betel nut but…
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…
We’d have thought it was fairly obvious that dawn – whether sunrise at Angkor Wat, The Taj Mahal or anywhere else you can think of vary enormously. Some – spectacular explosions of vibrant colours whilst others – just plain, grey, overcast and however fantastic the setting is for the dawn is it has no influence at all over how dramatic…
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…
Nga Tong -a delicious kind of spicy fish dip or paste that’s served as a side dish or accompaniment to Burmese meals and which is actually exceptionally easy to make. Now we’re talking about a fresh fish dish, bearing no resemblance whatever to, for instance, Cambodia’s notorious fermented fish dip, prahok. Prahok is infamous for its main ingredient – a…
For a relatively small ethnic group, the Padaung certainly have plenty of names. Padaung is apparently the Shan term for the Kayah Lahwi– a subgroup of the Kayah ethnic family who are in turn a subgroup of the Karenni or Red Karen who are themselves a part of the wider Karen family. Vulgar terms for them are ‘Long Necks’, ‘Long…
Burma’s picturesque Inle Lake has numerous fascinating sites on offer to visitors: the lakeside markets and stilt villages, ethnic minorities, temples, myriad handicraft and traditional ‘cottage industries’ to check out and the amazing ruins of the old Shan city at In Dein but it’s two most famous sites are probably the floating gardens plus the unusual fishermen who row with…
As with, for example, Malaysia the wide ethnic mix of Burma (Myanmar) leads to a wide range of Burmese food. Along with regional ethnic groups such as Karen, Shan, Kachin, Thai, Mon etc that contribute towards the indigenous mix, there were, during the British period, large numbers of Nepalese, Indian ((Bengali and Tamil for instance) – and in more recent…
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…