Home » Burma (Myanmar) » Land of the Golden Temples

After Cambodia we traveled to Myanmar via Bangkok. Myanmar is an isolated country, ranking 154th on the list of countries surveyed in the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom 2005, beating only North Korea. Political freedoms are certainly not much better either.

Land of the Golden Temples

Odv
2006-04-15 18:35:02

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government. He is actually mentioned by name in the movie "About a Boy" which stars Hugh Grant.

It was coincidentally on February 14th when both these experiences made us fall in love with the people of Myanmar! It made me think how counterproductive the boycott actually is.

We should visit this country, we can actually help them, for example to practice English and inform them about the outside world or give some handy tips for using the Internet. But also to help keep the spotlight on a persecuted dance troupe, like the Moustache Brothers, so that the government will hopefully continue to leave them alone. The more foreign eyes there are in Myanmar the more protection there is for the people of Myanmar.
Bagan

After so much traveling we are sometimes unimpressed by things. Other tourists click away in awe at things that have become normal to us, a local market, a river boat, another temple, waterfall or whatever. Then we are happy to be impressed again by something so out of the ordinary and unique as Bagan.

Bagan, a temple area 8 hours south of Mandalay, officially counts 2217 temples spread out over a vast area. The view from any temple top consists of other temples as far as the eye can see!

One can spend days pleasantly roaming around the temples in a horse cart or on bicycle. You will soon get very confused by all the odd sounding temple names, it helps to write them down, otherwise I couldn't possibly tell you the temples that we visited.

Wetkyi-in, Gubyangyi (many frescoes were taken by a German collector), The-Gyar-hit, Upali Thein, Law-ka Hitpan, Ananda Pahto (one of the biggest and best preserved), Migala Zedi, Shwesandaw Paya (nice view from upper terrace), Ananda Ok Kyang (the monastery next to Ananda with well preserved murals), Makabodhi Paya (with pyramidal spire), temple 1976 (with its 5 sides and real name unknown to me), Bupaya (by the river), Gawdaw Palin, Thatbyinnyu ...