West Burma travel guide

Tropical beach at Ngapali

This region is currently experiencing some civil unrest, particularly in the Mrauk-U area. For up to the minute travel advice, see the Foreign and Commonwealth Office advice for Burma: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/burma

Only open to visitors since the 1990s, western Myanmar is still very much off the beaten track. It’s an extensive region of placid, sandy beaches, slow-moving broad rivers, jungle and impenetrable hills. From the beaches of Rakhaing in the south, to the Indian border in the north, it is isolated from central Myanmar by a series of hardy mountain ranges – the Rakhaing Yoma, the Chin Hills and the Letha Taung. To the southwest, the region is washed by the Indian Ocean, then the land frontier marches north by Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts and the Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur. 

In historical terms, western Myanmar is a peripheral land, neither Burmese nor Indian, though it becomes more integrated into Burmese culture by the year. Rakhaing is where the historically independent Kingdom of Arakan once flourished, a Buddhist state where the kings traditionally also carried a Muslim title, and where Southeast Asian Buddhism met and intermingled with Bengali Islam. Even today the area holds a distinctively south Asian feel in its cuisine, dress, and the facial characteristics of its people.

Chin State

North of Rakhaing the unexplored hill tracts of Chin State remain one of the least-known parts of Myanmar – not just unvisited by foreigners, but unfamiliar to all but a handful of Bamar, most of them military men or frontier police. The most traditional part of Chin State is in the south, where unmarried Chin women still wear traditional dress. Further north, the Chin have been Christianised and have, in large part, adopted Western dress.

Western Myanmar is not the easiest part of the country to visit. While access by sea or by road is certainly possible, these are slow and unreliable options. Most people choose to fly in from Yangon or Mandalay, the great majority landing at the Rakhaing capital of Sittwe. Once in Rakhaing – Chin State remains, for the moment, off the tourist itinerary unless by special invitation or arrangement – the best way of getting about is by boat, often an old, overcrowded river steamer. Despite these discomforts, it is well worth making the trip. Rakhaing offers some of the finest beaches in Southeast Asia, and while the facilities are still rudimentary, the waters are clear, the sand pristine, and there are almost no other visitors – for the present, that is. Moreover, beyond the beaches, up the rolling Kaladan River, lies the mystical and all-but-forgotten city of Mrauk-U, the temple-studded capital of Old Arakan.

Top places to visit in Western Burma

Mrauk-U

The ruins of the Arakan Dynasty’s former capital, Mrauk-U (Myohaung), are strewn over a plateau between the Kaladan and the Lomro rivers, 65km (40 miles) upriver from Sittwe. Comparisons with Bagan are inevitable: the houses and other secular buildings that would once have lined the city’s streets have long since disappeared, leaving in their wake dozens of religious structures marooned amid the bleached grass, tropical foliage and fields. Yet the site doesn’t nearly approach the scale or grandeur of its older counterpart on the Ayeyarwady; many of the monuments languish in a lamentably tumbledown state, often literally in cultivated land where buffalo graze and villagers tend their radish patches – all of which, of course, add considerably to Mrauk-U’s allure. Choked with weeds and creepers, the brick stupas and temple complexes exude a feeling of tantalising remoteness that more than repays the time and trouble required to reach the site.

Pending the completion of a controversial new rail line being bulldozed through the edges of Mrauk-U, the only way foreigners can access the ruins is by catching a plane to Sittwe, and picking up a boat for the remaining leg – a delightful river journey that heightens the overall sense of anticipation. If you’re on a pre-arranged tour you’ll be transported in a comfortable, fast motorboat. Independent travellers have three options: a slow, double-decker ITW ferry (depart Tue and Fri, return Wed and Sat), which takes around 7 hours to cover the route; a faster, more expensive private boat (5–6 hours; $150 for six or seven passengers); or, the speediest option of all, the express Shwe Pyi Tan (depart Mon and Wed at 3pm), which is frequently booked by groups but only takes two to three hours. A $5 entry fee is charged on arrival at the jetty.

Ngapali

Myanmar’s only fully fledged beach resort, Ngapali, 10km (6 miles) southwest of Thandwe, centres on a tranquil, palm-lined bay in the south of Rakhaing. Its soft, white shell sand, translucent water and wonderful seafood offer a welcome respite from the dust and humidity of travel inland. Visitors on luxury tours comprise the majority of the clientele here, served by a string of small-scale hotels dotted around the bay. For the time being the atmosphere is peaceful, with oodles of space on the sand. Fishermen from the nearby villages well outnumber tourists, and their boats bob around offshore unmolested by jet-skis and powerboats. All that looks set to change, however. Plans are afoot to extend the runway of nearby Thandwe airport to accommodate long-haul flights from Bangkok and Singapore, and a batch of ultra-swish five-stars is already taking shape in the surrounding palm forest in expectation of the coming bonanza.

Snorkelling and fishing trips offer alternatives to lounging on the sand in one of the string of breezy bars dotted along the bay. Most of the hotels are clustered at the north end of the beach, but it’s worth taking a walk south around the headland to the picturesque fishing village of Gyeiktaw, strewn behind a south-facing cove.

Nat Ma Taung (Mt Victoria), Chin State

The only place in Chin State that registers on Myanmar’s tourist map is the mountain soaring majestically above the Ayeyarwady Valley 80km (49 miles) west of Bagan. Rising to 3,053 metres (10,016ft), Nat Ma Taung (Mt Victoria) stands proud of the rest of the Chin Hills range, forming a so-called “sky island” with its own distinct micro-climate, flora and fauna. From Bagan, the round trip to the summit and back takes a minimum of six days (four of trekking and two of jeep travel). Government-accredited tour agents, such as Asterism Travels and Tours in Yangon (www.asterism.info), can help negotiate the necessary permits, but allow at least one month to be sure of getting your paperwork in time.

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Southeast Burma travel guide

Golden Rock

Tapering down the western side of the Gulf of Mottama (Martaban) to the Isthmus of Kra, Southeastern Myanmar is a long, narrow finger of land extending from Kayin and Mon State, through Tanintharyi (Tenasserim), almost to the Thai island of Phuket. In historical terms, this is a marginal land, until recently peripheral to the Bamar centre, with distinct cultural, ethnic and historical ties to neighbouring Thailand and to the Malay-Indonesian world further to the south.

Age-old antipathies between its predominantly Karen population and the Burmese have for decades ensured that the region has been blighted by one of Asia’s longest-running civil wars, and that is has been inaccessible to visitors. However, with a peace accord between the government and insurgent armies now firmly in place and the conflict seemingly at an end, the area is bound to open up over the coming decade.

Golden Rock

Foremost among its many unique attractions is the beautiful “Golden Rock” Pagoda of Mount Kyaiktiyo in Mon State, which can be reached in a day from Yangon. Further south, the Mon capital, Mawlamyine(Moulmein), retains a distinct colonial-era charm and serves as the start, or end, point of cruises by old double-decker ferries on the Thanlwin (Salween) River into neighbouring Kayin State, where the striking limestone hills, caves and mountaintop monasteries around the town of Hpa-an entice increasing numbers of travellers.

Still more isolated is the exquisite coast of Tanintharyi (Tenasserim), in the far south, which is slowly opening up to foreign travellers. At present, the entire region is a delightful tropical backwater, perhaps fifty years removed from the relative affluence and openness of neighbouring Thailand. A more pristine, more beautiful part of mainland Southeast Asia would be hard to find.

With judgement and care, the Tanintharyi Coast, and more especially the totally undeveloped Myeik Archipelago of 800 coral-fringed islets offshore, could become a major source of foreign exchange for Myanmar and its people. 

Top places to visit in Southeast Burma

Golden Rock, Mon State

Forming one of the most ethereal spectacles in Southeast Asia, the Kyaiktiyo “Golden Rock” Pagoda crowns a ridge of forested hills in the far north of Mon State, 210km (130 miles) east of Yangon around the Gulf of Mottama. During the pilgrimage season between November and March, tens of thousands of devotees climb daily to the shrine, regarded as the third most sacred in the country after the Shwedagon Pagoda and Maha Muni image in Mandalay, for a glimpse of a modest, 7.3-metre (24ft) stupa mounted atop a lavishly gilded boulder. According to the faithful, only the presence inside the reliquary spire of a hair of the Buddha prevents the rock from toppling into the sheer-sided ravine below.

The hour-long climb to the hilltop temple can be arduous in the heat, and the journey to and from the starting point of the walk in an open-topped truck is less than comfortable. But the effort is rewarded with the chance to see the magical boulder bathed in the delicate, rose-coloured light of dawn or the afterglow of sunset, when crowds of ecstatic pilgrims and monks illuminate flickering candles and incense sticks as offerings.

Mawlamyine, Mon State

Thanks to its fleeting mention in the famous poem Mandalay (1890), the former capital of British Burma, Moulmein – or Mawlamyine as it’s since been re-named – will forever be associated in the foreign imagination with Rudyard Kipling, which is ironic considering the writer only spent a few fleeting hours here. Yet the town, or more accurately the beauty of its women, made a lasting impression on the 24-year-old, who was travelling to England for the first time from Calcutta via the US.

Mawlamyine pagoda was one of several encrusting a prominent ridge inland from the city, today home to more than 500,000 people. Strategically sited 28km (18 miles) inland from the mouth of the Thanlwin (Salween) River, Moulmein was ceded to the British by the Kingdom of Ava in the Treaty of Yandabo at the end of the First Anglo-Burmese War in 1826, whereupon it was transformed into a thriving teak and rubber port. Few of the once sizeable Anglo-Burmese community that formerly dominated Moulmein remain, the majority having left for more prosperous corners of the Empire after Independence, but plenty of mildewing Raj-era buildings attest to its 19^th-century prominence. However, it’s the considerably more ancient Buddhist monuments crowning the ridge inland that tend to draw the eye here.

Myeik Archipelago

An atoll of around 800 coral-fringed islands scattered off the coast of Tanintharyi, the Myeik Archipelago is a tropical paradise of the kind that has all but disappeared in Southeast Asia. The ban on independent travel imposed by the government has ensured that the islands remain much as they have for centuries, inhabited by communities of Malay fishermen and semi-nomadic Moken “Sea Gypsies” who, like their contemporaries further south along the Malay Peninsula, spend the dry season on small boats and return to ramshackle villages on land during the monsoons.

The Japanese are engaged in lucrative pearl fishing in the archipelago, while the region’s swifts’ nests – found in cathedral-like limestone caves accessible only at low tide – are harvested for exotic bird’s-nest soup.

Tourism, however, has thus far made negligible impact. While travellers may visit Myeik and Kawthaung – the atoll’s two main embarkation ports – they are not allowed to explore the islands; immigration police patrolling the ferry docks will arrest anyone who tries. For the time being, the only option is to check into the incongruous, government-owned and eye-wateringly expensive Andaman Club on Thahtay Kyun Island – a 205-room five-star with its own 18-hole golf course and Vegas-style casino. Alternatively, a handful of Thai scuba crews working out of Phuket run live-aboard cruises to the world-class dive sites in the area.

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Northeast Burma travel guide

Canoeing around Inle Lake

Shan State

The image of an Intha fisherman standing at the stern of a flat-bottomed canoe, rowing with one leg past a backdrop of mist-shrouded mountains over the shimmering waters of Inle Lake is one of Myanmar’s most iconic. With its idyllic stilted villages, ancient stupacomplexes and fabulous backdrop of green hills, Inle is the top attraction of Shan State, in the country’s hilly northeast. But the region holds plenty of other compelling destinations, many of them in areas newly opened to tourists.

In the forest hills due west of Inle, Kalaw, a former British hill station, is visited primarily by travellers wishing to make treks into the tribal areas surrounding it. The most popular routes wind east to the lake, through pine forests and a fertile belt that’s intensively farmed by a variety of colourfully dressed minority groups. Another popular trail works its way 110km (70 miles) northwest to the fabulous Pindaya Cave, with its thousands of carved Buddha images. An alternative trekking hub is the market town of Hsipaw in the Nam Tu Valley, to the northeast of Pyin U-Lwin. The choice of accommodation is more limited here, but the tribal villages nestled in the surrounding countryside see correspondingly fewer visitors.

Shan is Myanmar’s largest state, extending west as well as east from its administrative capital, Taunggyi, for 350km (220 miles) to Laos and the notorious “Golden Triangle” of the opium trade; nearly as far north to the Burma Road and the Chinese border; and south a lesser distance to the tribal states of the Kayah and Kayin (Karen). This is largely a region of high, roadless peaks, of rugged river gorges and fiercely independent tribes-people who until recently were locked in a war with the Burmese government. 

Kachin State

North of Shan and Kayah states is Kachin State, which has slowly opened to foreigners. Foremost among its attractions is the week-long trip down the Ayeyarwady from the towns of Myitkyina or Bhamo, which can be covered on a government ferry or on one of the handful of luxury cruises that operate on this relatively unfrequented stretch. Home to colourful tribal groups, Kachin State’s Indawgyi Lake, the largest in Myanmar, is breathtaking, as are its snowcapped mountain ranges in the far north around the town of Putao, near to the border with India. 

The state is also an important source of Burmese jade, which has long enthralled gem merchants far and wide.

Top places to visit in Northeast Burma

Inle Lake, Shan State

Thanks to its cooler climate and picturesque setting in the lap of the Shan Hills, Inle Lake these days attracts serious numbers of visitors during the winter tourist season. In between leisurely sojourns gazing from their hotel verandahs across the water, travellers while away days taking boat trips to ruined stupas, hot springs and the stilted villages of the local Intha people. The Intha are responsible for Inle’s defining image – that of the local “leg-rowing” fishermen, who propel themselves across the lake’s surface by wrapping one leg around oars fixed to the stern of flat-bottomed canoes.

Around 70,000 Intha live in the towns and scattered villages clustered on the shores of the lake, which is approximately 21km (13 miles) long and 11km (7 miles) wide. As well as their distinctive rowing technique, the minority are known for their “floating gardens”, or kyunpaw, which they create by collecting weeds from the surface and lashing them together to form metre-thick strips. These are then anchored to the bed of the lake with bamboo poles, and heaped with mud scooped from the bottom. One advantage of the method is that it can be used regardless of fluctuating water levels. Crops – including cauliflower, tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, peas, beans and aubergine – are grown year-round.

With regular connections to Heho airport (40km/25 miles northwest) from Yangon, Mandalay and Bagan, getting to Inle is straightforward if you fly. Overland it’s a tougher undertaking by bus or taxi along mountain roads via the junction town of Shwenyaung, or highland capital Taunggyi to the lake’s principal town and transport hub, Nyaungshwe.

Taunggyi, Shan State

The administrative centre and main market hub for the Inle Lake region is Taunggyi, seat of the Shan Council of Chiefs during the British colonial period. The town was founded by Sir James George Scott, one of the most respected colonial officers in the history of British Burma. 

The five-day market is visited in large numbers by the region’s hill tribes who flock here to buy and sell home-grown fruit and vegetables, and to stock up on household essentials imported from China.

In the city centre, close to a monument to Bogyoke Aung San, stands the Taunggyi Museum (also known as Shan State Museum). It is small, but worth a look if you’re interested in the region’s hill tribes, with displays of 30 or so costumes from Shan minorities.

Kalaw, Shan State

Perched on the western rim of the Shan Plateau, Kalaw, 70km (44 miles) west of Taunggyi, was once a favourite hill-station retreat for British officials and their families during the hot season – little wonder, considering its beautiful setting amid bamboo groves, orange orchards and pine woods. In common with mountain retreats in the Himalayan foothills of India, the town retains a faded colonial atmosphere, and a noticeably cosmopolitan mix of people descended from the Sikhs, Tamils, Nepalis and Indian Muslims who were drafted in as a labour force in the late 19^th century. In addition to this cultural legacy, the British left behind some attractive gardens and Victorian buildings, but most visitors come here to trek in the surroundings hills. Kalaw also hosts one of the region’s most vibrant five-day markets, for which minority people descend en masse from the hills dressed in traditional costume.

Pindaya, Shan State

Pindaya, a three- to four-hour drive northwest of Nyaungshwe (Inle Lake), is famous across Myanmar as the site of the extraordinary Shwe U Min Cave Temple, a huge, convoluted complex of limestone grottoes crammed with around 9,000 Buddha images. Varying in size and style, the figures were mostly installed between the 16^th and 18^thcenturies, and are made of gold, silver, marble, lacquer, teak and ivory. 

The caves honeycomb a steep hillside rising above Pone Taloke Lake. They are accessed via a network of covered stairways and lifts leading to ornately gilded and decorated entrance pavilions. It’s obvious from the start that the Buddha statues are very much objects of active veneration: worshippers young and old bow before them, offering flowers and incense in clasped hands to honour the principles of kindness, compassion and tolerance which the images embody.

The most revered cave is the Antique Pagoda, built by King Sridama Sawka more than 2,000 years ago, comprising a myriad of golden Buddhas sitting in red niches stacked one above the another.

Hsipaw, Shan State

Hsipaw, an old mountain valley town on the sinuous Tu River, was once the administrative centre for the state of the same name, one of nine formerly ruled by Shan princes. The town is noted for its haw, or European-style palace, where the last sawbwa, Sao Kya Seng, and his Austrian-born wife, Inge Sargent, lived until the military coup of 1962, when the chief disappeared. He was later found to have been murdered by the regime – events described in vivid detail in Sargent’s bestselling biography, Twilight Over Burma. The old palace is now occupied by Sao Kya Seng’s nephew, the affable Mr Donald, who, until he was arrested by the government for showing foreigners around the building, used to act as an unofficial tour guide. Mr Donald has since been released from prison but no longer welcomes callers.

The majority of travellers who make it as far northeast as Hsipaw tend to come in order to trek to hill-tribe villages in the area, which are far less frequented and accustomed to foreigners than the country around Kalaw. For those travelling independently, trips of varying lengths, from day hikes to full-on expeditions lasting a week or more, may be arranged through local hotels and guesthouses. 

Hsipaw’s main pagoda is the Mahamyatmuni Paya on Namtu Road, a much more modest complex than its namesakes further south but which is worth a visit for its immaculately painted stupas and gleaming brass Buddha statue, backed by a halo of flashing red and purple UV lights. Of more traditional interest is the old quarter just north of the centre where, among numerous antique wooden buildings, stands the Maha Nanda Kantha Kyaung, home to a Buddha made entirely from strips of woven bamboo.

For a great panoramic view over the town, head 1km (0.6 miles) south to Five Buddha Hill, where the terrace fronting the Thein Daung Pagoda offers a popular spot for a late-afternoon stroll, whence its local nickname, “Sunset Hill”.

Indawgyi Lake, Kachin State

One of the principal attractions of Kachin State is Indawgyi Lake, the largest body of fresh water in Myanmar. Around 24km (16 miles) from north to south and 12km (8 miles) across, it is sustained by a dozen streams feeding into a depression. Large gold deposits are held in the surrounding hills, as well as extensive teak forests worked by three major logging camps.

Train tickets to Hopin should be booked on the eve of departure. Arrive at the Myitkyina railway station early as there is almost always a long queue.

A chain of picturesque Shan villages dots the lake shore, comprising clusters of wooden stilted houses. From an island in the middle of the lake rises the dazzling white and gilt Shwe Myitzu Pagoda where relics of the Buddha are said to be enshrined. It sits on a two-tier platform consisting of a central golden stupa surrounded by scores of smaller white stupas. Panels depicting scenes from the Buddha’s life decorate the ceilings covering the lower tier of the platform, which is also adorned by statues of nat, said to still roam the Indawgyi area. Access is via a narrow sand causeway that gets partially submerged in the wet season. Visitors can take in the various villages, wooden monasteries, Kachin churches and manaotaing (decorative totem poles used for festive occasions), or drop in at one of the three logging camps to see elephants at work. The jade mines of Hpakant, to the north of Indawgyi, are strictly off limits to tourists.

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Ayeyarwady Delta travel guide

Farming the land in the Delta Region

A giant patchwork of lime-green paddy and twisting waterways, the Delta Region west of Yangon is the rice bowl of Myanmar. Its famed fertility derives from the silt deposited by the Ayeyarwady as it reaches the end of its 1,200km (750-mile) journey from Upper Myanmar to the Andaman Sea, fraying like the end of an old rope into hundreds of narrow, sinuous channels.

Although rice cultivation is the mainstay here, the Delta also supports numerous fish farms producing carp, threadfin and giant sea perch, as well as prawns and other shellfish for export. The resulting prosperity has spurred a sharp rise in population since Independence, yet little government money has been invested in sea defences, despite the fact that most of the area lies at only 3 metres (10ft) above the high-tide mark. 

Much of the Delta can, with time and determination, be explored by government ferries and other small boats, but in practice, travellers tend to head from Yangon to its largest city, Pathein, via the main road skirting the north of the region, and from there proceed to one or both of the beach resorts on the west coast: Chaungtha and Ngwe Saung. More conveniently covered in a day trip from Yangon, Twante is a pottery town renowned for its gilded pagoda, the Shwesandaw, though note that to reach it you’ll need to obtain a permit.

Top places to visit in the Ayeyarwady Delta

Twante

The day trip west to the pottery town of Twante, on the Ayeyarwady Delta, is deservedly among the most popular from Yangon, not least because of the enjoyable (if short) ferry trip over the river at the journey’s start. The crossing only takes five minutes. Once at Dalah, on the opposite bank, jeeps are on hand for the remaining 45 minutes by road. 

Twante has one significant pagoda, the spectacular, 76-metre (250ft) Shwesandaw, which was built in 1057 to enshrine hairs of the historical Buddha, Gautama. The canal banks around the town are lined with pottery in all shapes and sizes. Visitors can see potters at work and completed pieces being fired in old-fashioned kilns.

Pathein

With a population of around 237,000, Pathein (also known as “Bassein”) is the capital of the Delta and Myanmar’s fourth-largest city. It has a noticeably more upbeat and well-heeled feel than many Burmese cities of comparable size, thanks largely to its port, which handles the bulk of the region’s lucrative rice trade. Pathein’s other claim to fame is its traditional parasol workshops which, along with a handful of impressive Buddhist monuments, entice a steady stream of travellers to pause here en route to or from the beach resorts further west. Transport connections from Yangon, 190km (118 miles) east, are frequent, with daily trains and buses, as well as an overnight ferry that’s one of Myanmar’s great river journeys.

Pathein’s resplendently gilded centrepiece is the Shwemokhtaw Pagoda (“Stupa of the Half Foot Gold Bar”), whose shimmering, bell-shaped profile soars in spectacular fashion above the city centre, market area and riverside. 

The pagoda’s presiding image, housed in a hall on the south side of the complex, is the Thiho-shin Phondaw-pyi sitting Buddha, believed to have been one of four sculpted in ancient times in Sri Lanka and floated to the Ayeyarwady Delta on a raft.

Chaungtha 

A five-hour drive from Yangon, Chaungtha Beach is the area’s only fully fledged resort, albeit a very low-key one by the standards of Southeast Asia. Yangonites descend here in droves on weekends to paddle, take bullock cart rides and pony treks along the sand, and dine out on fresh crab at sunset time. If you visit during the week you’ll find the place much more peaceful. There’s a good choice of reasonably priced accommodation, most of it in simple tiled bungalows right behind the beach, and plenty of seafood restaurants. Should you tire of lazing around, local boatmen are on hand to ferry visitors out to nearby White Sand Island, just off the southern end of the beach, where the water is clearer. Alternatively, turn right at the beachfront and keep walking for a kilometre or so past the sandy outcrop until you reach a stretch that’s almost always deserted.

Ngwe Saung

A short hop down the coast, Ngwe Saung (“Silver Beach”) is the Delta’s other beach destination. It’s a notch more tranquil and exclusive, attracting a mix of affluent Yangonites on the one hand, and intrepid foreign backpackers on the other: while the former stick to the swanky resorts at the north end of the bay, the latter press on to the more isolated south side, where a handful of small guesthouses provide budget rooms. Comprising 14km (9 miles) of gently shelving, golden sand backed by casuarina and palm trees, the beach remains gloriously unspoilt, though new high-end resorts are springing up each year, equipped with pools, spas and water-sports facilities.  A short wade at low tide takes you to Lovers’ Island, just off the centre of the bay, which is surrounded by translucent turquoise water.

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Burma: profile

Young Buddhist monks walking for morning alms in Bagan

Pristine beaches, gleaming stupas, lost cities, serene inland lakes and hill tribe treks are just some of the reasons travellers have started to return to Burma since its tourism boycott was eased in 2010.

Facts about Burma

• Population: 60 million
• Area: 676,578 square kilometres/261,227 square miles
• Capital city of Burma: Naypyidaw
• Official language: Burmese
• State religion: Buddhism
• Head of state: Thein Sein (president)
• Time zone: GMT + 6hr 30min
• Currency: Kyat
• Country code: +95
• Emergency numbers: Police (199); Fire (191); Ambulance (192)

At the crossroads

The defining feature of Burma’s varied geography is the Ayeyarwaddy (Irrawaddy) River, whose silty, dun-coloured waters bisect the country from north to south, flowing for 2170km (1350 miles) from the Himalayas to the Andaman Sea. For many centuries, the ‘Irrawaddy’, as it was known in colonial times, served as the main trade artery connecting southwest China and India. Merchants, missionaries and invaders all travelled along it, and a succession of powerful, culturally sophisticated dynasties arose along its banks, focussed on the dry, sun-baked plains of the central Ayeyarwady Valley.

A rocky lowland splashed with expanses of vivid green rice paddy, this cultural crossroads was where Theravada Buddhism first took root in the region. Over time, the Buddha’s teachings intermingled with indigenous worship of nat (nature spirits), to create a distinctive form of the faith whose gilded pagodas and monasteries of red-robed monks remain central to local life. The arts, architecture, music and philosophy also flourished, fostered by feudal kings whose empires at their peak were the largest in Southeast Asia.

Burmese culture survived a century of British rule but fared less well in World War II and its aftermath, when the country was devastated by waves of furious fighting between the Allies and Japanese, and then by rival political and factions in a bloody civil war. Independence, granted in 1948, soon yielded to one of the harshest, most repressive and enduring military dictatorships of the modern era. 

Life under the generals

Decades of civil strife and economic mismanagement by the ruling generals have taken their toll on Burma. Backed by drug money from the so-called ‘Golden Triangle’ opium belt in the north and east, as well as profits from the government-controlled trade in teak, rubies, jade and gold, Burma’s military elite have waged war against ethnic minorities on the country’s fringes. A quarter of the regime’s total budget is spent on arms – but only 1.5 percent on health care. The media is tightly controlled and dissent brutally suppressed, with political opponents routinely imprisoned without trial, tortured or used as forced labour.

With growth languishing below 3 percent, Burma is officially Southeast Asia’s poorest country. While its neighbours have modernised at dizzying speeds, life under army rule remains a slog for the poverty-stricken majority. 

The picture, however, is not all bleak. In order to encourage the lifting of economic sanctions and stimulate foreign investment, the dictators have embarked on a transition to democratic government. Leader of the National League for Democracy party, Aung San Suu Kyi, was released from house arrest in November 2010, and immediately hit the campaign trail for the freest elections in the country’s history, held in April 2012.

A land apart

As a consequence of its long economic isolation, Burma today feels locked in a kind of time warp. Yangon may be sprouting skyscrapers, but the rest of the country still lives in dilapidated low-rise towns and villages made of mud brick and bamboo, deprived of reliable water and electricity supplies. Bullocks plough the paddy fields, horse-carts outnumber cars and wind-powered barges ply the rivers. The roads, railways, buses and ferries are in a decrepit state. ATMs are non-existent (you have to change foreign currency on the black market and carry your money in cash), and universal broadband and mobile phone coverage remain a distant dream.

From a foreign traveller’s point of view, however, this quirky, old-world atmosphere makes Burma a charismatic place to travel. Traditions of the past remain very much to the fore. Walking the streets of Mandalay in the early morning , you’ll see hundreds of red-robed monks queuing for alms, young women with fragrant thanakha paste smeared over their faces, elderly vegetable sellers puffing on over-sized cheroots, and all manner of exotic headgear, from conical straw hats to burgundy turbans. Longyis, beautifully patterned batik sarongs, are worn by nearly all women – and most men. Religious dance-dramas are still an integral part of temple festivals, or pwe, featuring performers in superbly exotic masks and silk costumes. The everyday odours can be just as strikingly unfamiliar, along with the wonderful flavours of Burmese cooking, with its pungent mix of spices, seafood sauces and coconut milk.

On the brink of change

Just how well this unique way of life will withstand the onslaught of modernity that’s waiting in the wings remains to be seen. But for the time being, despite its manifold problems, Burma is ripe for exploration, with more world-class monuments than you could possibly see on a 28-day tourist visa, a wealth of vibrant arts and crafts traditions and, not least, inhabitants whose resilience, gentleness and hospitable attitude to foreigners impress every visitor to the country.

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