Top places to visit in Burma (Myanmar)
With the country poised on the brink of modernisation and the decades-old tourism boycott finally at an end, there’s never been a better time to visit Burma – southeast Asia’s perennially down-at-heel, but defiantly proud, outlier.
Yangon and the south
Its principal gateway is the southern city of Yangon, formerly ‘Rangoon’, site of the incongruously chimeric Shwedagon Paya, the country’s oldest and most magnificent pagoda. Among the principal donors to Shwedagon were the rulers of nearby Bago, the vestiges of whose once splendid capital make a perfect daytrip. Back in Yangon, pull up a plastic chair and join the legions of office workers who breakfast on spicy mohinga noodle stew at one of the city’s traditional teahouses; marvel at the legendary Peacock Throne in the National Museum; and soak up the faded charm of the old colonial quarter, whose stained, flaking facades recall the grandeur of the British Raj at its peak.
Southeast of Yangon, troubled Kayin State is worth a detour for the other-worldy limestone crags around Mt Zwegabin, and to visit one of Asia’s most distinctive religious sites, the temple of the Golden Boulder at Mt Kyaiktiyo, where a gilded rock – the object of veneration for millions of Burmese Buddhist – seems to balance precariously above a vertical precipice.
Bagan and Mandalay
Remnants of a much older capital lie a long day’s journey north from Yangon up the Ayeyarwaddy River at Bagan. Literally thousands of crumbling brick and stucco stupas, monasteries, temples, palaces and pagodas bristle from the rocky riverbank at Burma’s foremost archeological site – all that remains of the illustrious medieval city sacked by Kublai Khan in the 13th century.
From Bagan you can jump on a double-decker steamboat for a luxury river cruise to the last royal Burmese capital, Mandalay, a city whose name has become a byword for ‘distant and exotic’, but which turns out to be devoid of architectural charm (a legacy of the blanket bombing by Japanese forces in World World II). However, its backstreets do hold plenty of old-world interest in the form of traditional crafts workshops and thriving monasteries, while the surrounding countryside is littered with evocative religious ruins, including the hundreds of whitewashed and gilded stupas rising from the ridges of Sagaing on the far side of the river.
Elsewhere in central Burma
With a little more time, you could venture further west to the extraordinary Buddhist sites clustered around the town of Monywa, on the Chindwin River, which include the world’s largest Buddhas at Bodhi Tataung, and the finely painted complex of ancient rock-cut caves at Pho Win Taung (Hpo Win Daung).
Another age-old target for pilgrims in this region is Popa Taung Kalat, where a temple dedicated to Burma’s mysterious nats, or nature spirits, clings to the top of a sheer-sided volcanic hill, yielding wonderful views across the sweltering central flatlands to Bagan.
Further east, the sun-baked, palm-studded plains of the Ayeyarwaddy Valley blister into the pine-forested foothills of the Shan Plateau, where beautiful Inle Lake nestles amid the lush mountains. Based at a waterside hotel, you can make the most of the cooler weather to take boat trips to stilted Intha villages and floating gardens, explore weed-choked ruined temples, shop for lotus silk and exquisitely printedlongyis at local markets and trek into the hills to ethnic minority settlements.
The west
The country’s remaining sights all require a little more time and determination to reach, but certainly repay the effort. In the far west, the airport at Sittwe serves as the springboard for the 65km (40-mile) boat trip up the Kaladan River to Mrauk-U, where villagers still tend their fields amid the ruined monuments of the ancient Arakan Kings’ imperial capital.
For a break from the pagoda trail, head down the west coast to Ngapali Beach, the only proper seaside resort in Burma. A string of resorts nestle in the palms trees here behind an idyllic gold sand bay, lapped by transluscent blue water.
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