Travel to Burma, Yangon.

Our first 12 hours in Yangon have been delightfully overwhelming, a feast for the senses and almost impossible to describe in just a few words. The city reminds me of Delhi, extremely poor, dirty, noisy and yet interspersed with magnificent golden pagodas, decaying colonial buildings, vibrant street life and above all incredibly friendly and polite people, everywhere we have been. We have only seen a few other tourists and clearly tourism and westernisation have yet to take hold, but construction works on new roads and hotels has started - a few months ago foreign cars were allowed to be imported- things will change soon.

Even Eve has been completely taken in by the sights and sounds of the city, especially the golden pagodas, stupas and the huge buddha statues around every corner. Everywhere we go she is the centre of attention but not in a bothersome way, the locals just seem to want to say hello to her and to photograph her - she was even asked by a monk to pose with him for a photo !

Read more at http://www.travelblog.org

Travel to Burma, Yangon.

I determined early in the trip that I would enter Myanmar with an open mind, in fact it was almost blank. Er, perhaps that should read ... a blank canvas! I didn't want excessive research to impede a voyage of discovery to this unique travel destination in South East Asia. Of course I'm aware of Myanmar's recent history, as the country has just awakened from 40 years of almost total isolation. Destinations such as this are becoming rare in an increasingly connected world, so I thought I'd experience Burmese culture before the country is inevitably overrun by tourism, as is the case over in neighbouring Thailand. An Aussie guy in the Bangkok hostel was stunned to hear I had no Lonely Planet, was completely oblivious to the absence of ATMs, and had not cashed up with beaucoup US dollars. I'll have to admit the conversation did give me a bit of a hurry up, so I scrambled for the internet to get the good oil. Fortunately visa ATMs have recently been installed in December 2012, so armed to the teeth with mountains of knowledge I was able to slump back into an intellectual torpor!

Read more at http://www.travelblog.org/