Podcast

A Bit of Myanmar: The Ten Best Bits of Bagan

As we landed into Bagan, we couldn’t help peer out the window of our Yangon Airways (whose motto is “You’re safe with us!”) flight to see what we’d been waiting for. A trip to Myanmar is really a trip to Bagan – it’s always on the itinerary, from your first time or your 50th. Like the great man-made structures of the world, e.g. the Taj Mahal, the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, St. Peter’s, Bagan’s temples are a luxury to behold. The only difference is that there are over 2000 of them, built from the 9th to the 13th century, everyone of them distinctive.

The crux of your trip, as ours was, will be about seeing as many temples as you can, but Bagan has so many other […]

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November 13th, 2015|Bagan, Destinations, Myanmar, Ten Best Bits|2 Comments

A Bit of Myanmar: Inle Lake

Get it now, it’s going fast!
Isn’t that what ye olde market traders used to say?  I’m sure that’s what I heard as we headed to Inle Lake.  The President’s Office has approved a “hotel zone” which will include sixteen new hotels surrounding the lake.  So go now if you want to see scenes like the one pictured above.  The beauty of Inle Lake lies in its serenity.  You know there are tourists but it is very rare to bump into anyone else on the lake.  With sixteen more hotels on the way, things will definitely change.

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May 6th, 2014|Destinations, Inle Lake, Myanmar|9 Comments

A Bit of Myanmar: Yangon

I love landing into an unknown place at night.  Everything around you seems dark and mysterious and slightly dangerous.  Away from the comfort of your own bed, you know you are definitely not in Kansas anymore.  Landing into Yangon from Bangkok, it felt like the wee hours of the night, and in reality it was only 7:00pm.  Our car drove us through town as we headed to the hotel and we pressed our noses to the window trying to discover what was in store for us for the next ten days.  As we passed the famous Shwedagon Temple, we asked our guide to stop so we could see it in all its glory.  Two very bling Chinthes (the lion/dragon creatures) guard the majestic entrance and, alas, blocked our view of what Kipling called, “a beautiful winking wonder that blazed in the sun.”  We would have to wait until the light of day to bask in all its glory.
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February 20th, 2014|Destinations, Myanmar, Yangon|0 Comments

A Bit of Myanmar: Burma 101

Burma or Myanmar – whatever you call it…it’s on everyone’s lips and has been for the past few years since Aung San Suu Kyi proclaimed the tourist game open.   A travel magazine is remiss if it doesn’t mention the place to buy lotus silk or a review of one of the 16 new hotels planned for Inle Lake alone – I kid you not. Hotel prices have been going up 30% every year and since there are only a limited amount of hotels – that means it’s the Wild West as far as prices per room are concerned.

That’s what happens when one day you are closed to outsiders and then the next it is go, go, go.  Hopefully, someone in charge realizes that with great […]

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February 13th, 2014|Destinations, Myanmar|0 Comments