Hello, again, Blogonauts! Despite the posting date, I am writing this in reality on February 7, more than a week since I left Yangon. It deserves its proper place in the travel timeline, but multiple narratives have been writing themselves in my head since I left the city. Because I don't want to see Myanmar through only my cultural biases, it has been a challenge to fully appreciate religious expression in this highly Buddhist region of the world. The architec...

Before I contradict it, let me at least endorse a premise: There is by far more that unites the various human cultures than cleaves them apart. Nonetheless, we ignore this obvious fact on a daily basis. Human nature dictates that we stare at the things we find foreign. Even the term "outlandish" (the opposite of "homelandish"?) has entered the language to simultaneously indicate different and unacceptable. But because differences also spice up experience, noticin...

So where, you may ask, is Larry now? If you drag out your dusty world atlases, which I am certain you have readily available, and look for Burma... Oh, who am I kidding? If you open up Google Maps on your web browser and search for either "Myanmar" or "Burma," you will probably find depicted there a chunk of geography in Southeast Asia shaped like a north-bound tadpole. This particular tadpole is bordered by Thailand, Lao (AKA, Laos), China, Bangladesh and the...