Category: Myanmar (Burma)

  • Video Dump 6: Southeast Asia

    Hello and welcome to our sixth and likely final video dump. This one covers our time in Southeast Asia: Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Enjoy! First, here are two more videos of the election night celebration in Mandalay, Myanmar: Click here to watch the first video of the election night celebration Click here to…

  • Yum: Durian Fruit

    This oversized grenade of a fruit is a love/hate affair. It has a nasty reputation for smelling like trash, but durian fans are willing to overlook its scent’s peculiar similarity to dumpster air in order to enjoy the sweet, rich, custard-like meat. Our introduction to the fruit was in ice cream format in Myanmar, where…

  • Celebrating the New Year in Myanmar and Thailand: A Wet Mess!

    We finally succeeded in being in the right place at the right time: not only were we in Myanmar for their election day, but we also managed to take part in New Year celebrations in both Myanmar and Thailand. The (lunar) New Year is celebrated over several days in mid-April in these two countries as…

  • Why We Loved Myanmar

    We left Myanmar with smiles on our faces and a warm, fuzzy feeling in our hearts. We both agreed that it was our favorite country out of the 15 we had visited so far on this round-the-world trip. And we’ve talked to many other travelers who feel the same. So what is it about this…

  • Inle Lake: A World Afloat

    We pull our bikes up to a building offering longtail ferry transport across the lake. A genial old man with a huge smile welcomes us into the yard and offers us a seat on a bench while the boat is readied. Old Man: “Would you like some tea?” Claudia: “Sure, thank you.” Old Man: “Where…

  • Pankam: A Palaung Village in Shan State

    A popular activity in most southeast Asian countries is trekking to minority hill villages. So we left enough time in our Myanmar itinerary to head northeast from Mandalay to a town called Hsipaw, from where we could trek and overnight in nearby Palaung villages that are said to be largely uninfluenced by Western culture and…

  • Yum: Noodles, Tea Leaves, and A Mysterious Dessert

    I don’t think we knew what to expect from Myanmar cooking, but we ended up finding some gems during our culinary exporations. Burmese meals often consist of a buffet of meat and seafood curries sitting in a ton of oil that you pick by pointing at what you want, and are served with a vegetable…

  • Mustache Brothers: The Randomest Show on Earth

    We talked a little bit about the Mustache Brothers show in our last post, but it’s such a spectacle that we thought it deserved its own post. There are three brothers: Lu Maw, Par Par Lay, and U Lu Zaw, but it’s essentially a one-man variety show with Lu Maw, the only English speaker, on…

  • Aung San Suu Kyi, Election Day, and The Mustache Brothers

    We were lucky enough to be in Mandalay for a historic event: a by-election in which Aung San Suu Kyi ran for a parliamentary seat, the first election she has stood in since 1990. There were 44 parliamentary seats being contested by her party, the National League for Democracy. We started spotting tee-shirts and other…

  • Bagan: A Little Hair of the Dog

    By now you are probably sick of us telling you about temples. Your eyes start to glaze over, you wonder when we might post something about food again (soon, promise!), and you close the tab before reaching the end of our post. We can’t blame you, since we were still nursing a serious temple hangover…