We love this country! Having come from India, it's almost quiet and clean here. It isn't really, but it's like knocking your head against the wall, it feels so good when you stop. Seriously though, we love India. And Myanmar is a sweet place with kind, friendly people who appear to love their lives and appreciate their new-found-on-the-road-to-democracy country.


Bagan: I can walk for exercise - it's safe, I don't have to do it at 6:00am because of the heat, and there are somewhat quiet side streets. People sing out 'good morning!' from their window or scruffy yard - a dirt covered space with a plastic chair or two, maybe a bamboo bed where the laundry gets done - with big smiles on their faces excited to greet me as I walk by.

Bagan Archeological Zone is a 20 km oval plain with about 3300 restored (and more to come) Buddhist pagodas and temples that were built between about CE 950 and 1280 scattered about and connected by an array of dirt, sand and paved roads. Bus tours are rampant and to be avoided as throngs of people show up at the popular sites, invading them like a swarm of flies.

Neither Jim nor I are history buffs so I won't bore you with historical data. You can look it up if Bagan piques your interest. By the way, we didn't do the hot air balloon for two reasons. They cost $500CAD per person for 45 minutes and a friend's daughter was involved in a crash there, although not hurt as she was not in the balloon but on the ground. They found one of her shoes under the basket!

We have never seen dust like there is in Bagan and this isn't even the hottest, driest time of year yet. It's a miracle all these pagodas aren't buried 10 meters below the dust; well, actually, they probably were. We spent four days here scooting around on an e-bike looking at pagodas, especially during sunrise and sunset. Our clothes, ears and pores were infused with dust.

Inle Lake

On an airplane, in a car, on a boat for a total of four hours...all to get to our Shwe Inn Tha Floating Resort to our beautiful room on stilts over Inle Lake.

"Wow", I said to Jim. "This is so cool!"

And it was, mostly. But why were there two sets of ear plugs on the dresser? As we quickly discovered, we were on a boat highway with all boats having a single piston engine; something that made it sound like we were sitting on a helicopter landing pad. The boats began speeding by our cabin as early as 5:00am to get to the market and carried on all day transporting people - both locals and tourists - and goods. So much for finding peace and quiet on the lake.

But, this is the charm of travelling, especially to foreign lands...life is a neverending surprise and we are in awe daily - adapting, appreciating, scrambling, cocooning and just plain old having fun.

I think the photos speak to our time in Bagan and Inle Lake.

To see more of Jim's photos and in higher resolution, visit his Flickr site.