10 Favorite photo’s from Burma

Since the protests in Burma over the last few weeks, I decided to route through my pictures I took when I was there this this last year. Looking through the pictures reminded me how cool Burma is, seriously, it’s so undeveloped and rural which makes it an ideal place to explore.

Anyway, I’m not going to highlight the troubles Burma is having right now, I’m sure you’ve seen enough of that already in the media. Instead, I want to dedicate this post to the Burmese people, who are among the most open and friendliest I’ve ever met:

This photo was taken in the Shwedagon Pagoda, the most important temple in the whole of Burma. As I walked in, the guy in the above photo come up to me and offered to show me around. I’m all up for supporting locals so I agreed and was so glad I did.

In the above picture I’m donating a cigarette to the statue…. that felt a little weird! After showing me around and explaining what everything inside the Pagoda, we sat down beside the huge Pagoda (below photo) in the center and just chatted for hours. He was telling me about life for the Burmese People, the political situation, the fight for democracy, and his eager to learn the English language. He is one of my fondest memories of my whole trip in Burma.

When it was dark, we sat watching people come and go to prey. He then asked if he could read my astrology. I’ve never believed in this stuff but to not show disrespect, I agreed. After asking me for my date of birth and the day I was born on, he looked it up in his little aged astrology book and was gob smacked. He said that he had never seen someone with so much luck as he was reading and then going on to explain he had been doing this for 10 years.

I always consider myself very lucky. I will never forget what he said next: He said in October this year (2 days away) my luck will change for the worse, it will run out. I had a piece of bad luck that will probably stay with me for the rest of my life that happened last week… Was it that, or have I still got more to come? Or is it a load of bullocks? I don’t know know, but it’s funny that it’s always stayed with me, even though I don’t believe in that… or do I a little? …no I don’t.

The beautiful Shwedagon Pagoda at dusk.

The guy in the middle was my horse and kart taxi driver while I was in Bagan, located in central Burma. To the left is his Dad and the young guy in between them is his brother. On the other side of the room there were 4 more kids and his mum. My driver had only recently started his new job and didn’t speak much English, but that didn’t stop us from having fun! After a full day visiting many temples in the area, he asked me if I wanted to have dinner with his family that night… I was honored.

Even though his family lived in a hut and made less than a few dollars per day, his family went to great lengths to make sure I was comfortable and provided so much home cooked food! I bought the beer on the way, which resulted in us chatting to the early hours of the morning! A great example of how nice the Burmese people are. A night I’ll never forget.

One of many, many Pagodas in Bagan, Burma. I think we visited 20 in one day, all within a 2 mile radius.

This guy was great fun, I loved his persona and smile… I could have sat with him all day chatting and watching him paint these images with sand. I remember bargaining on the price of the picture I’m holding up and he just agreed with what ever price I offered him. He was desperate for any money I was prepared to give him. That shocked me and I suddenly come over with a great feeling of guilt… I ended up giving him a $100 for a $4 painting.

While in Bagan, I decided to hire a car with a driver to visit Popa Mountain (where they have free monkeys everywhere) which you can see in the background. We stopped off on the way as these young girls were selling stones within a stone. You shake the stone and it’s got like a ball inside that rattles… all natural.

After buying some stones, they became my buddies!

Burmese women at the local market.

After visiting Bagan, I headed up to Mandalay, in particular Inle lake. This was a cool town, or should I say lake! I hired a boat with a driver for 2 days and explored the huge lake which included stops to the cigar factory, Silk factory and the Long neck village. I fount the locals on the lake going about their everyday lives more interesting, like this guy fishing!

Back on dry land, I went out one afternoon and took hundreds of black and white photos, including this one of a guy riding a traditional bicycle taxi. The image on my home page was also taken in the same afternoon.