We only lasted three days in Mandalay. On day one we found the tourist information office at the central train station and pushed open the door to find a dusty, bare room occupied by a very small man who was fast asleep with his feet up on the desk. We needn’t have bothered waking him…
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Another city, another 4am taxi ride. The bus doors open with a sigh and I’m slapped awake by the noise of a crowd of taxi drivers, fighting for our custom and yet completely blocking the exit. Just to escape the shouting and the shoving we squeeze through the doors and escape to a shack-like tea…
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I believe that sometimes you have to endure something awful in order to be rewarded with an experience that is spectacular and vice versa. It’s a kind of experiential karma, I suppose, a belief that we exist in tune with the overall balance of the universe, our positive and negative experiences simply adding colour to…
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‘How many times you make your skin?’ She asks, smiling this dazzlingly wide and beautiful smile and pulling on her ponytail out of shyness. At first nobody would ask us questions. They just looked at us, smiling and whispering to each other as their teacher encouraged them, in Myanmar, to speak to us in English.…
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I sort of passed out on our second day in Yangon. After a morning spent at the dazzling inferno of Shwe Dagon Pagoda and lunch overlooking Karaweik Floating Barge on Kandawgyi Lake, I suddenly felt incredibly unwell. Here we go, I thought, mentally preparing myself for the bout of dysentry I’d been expecting as inevitable…
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As soon as we get through customs at Yangon International airport, a much less rigourous process than we had anticipated, taxi drivers start fighting for our custom. Young or old, bearded or closely shaven, they look almost identical in my eyes in their smart white shirts and floor length Longhis. The driver we’re assigned is…
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