The Governors Residence Yangon (Rangoon)

... his home in Ming Ko to this tiny village in the middle of a forgotten rice patty not once a month or once a week but...four times a week and he does it by foot alone since he does not have a bicycle much less a motorcycle. You see Brother Sein Thun walks everywhere by foot and He and his family live on 50,000 Kyats a month. Now that sounds like a lot to many of us but let me put it into perspective we can understand. The amount of 50,000 Kyats is roughly equivalent ...

After doing some traveling in Thailand, Mon, Kyle and I hopped on over to Myanmar for a gander. We flew to Yangon and were immediately transported to about 100 years ago. It's pretty amazing what we saw there and pretty sad how much their government has left ...

... relative harmony with each other. Myanmar also has a rule that says all boys must become monks for a certain period of time (as long as they're buddhist). It accepts that others don't follow Buddha, so they don't have to take part. When she told us this, I felt like she was saying, "yeah, we have our problems, but there are good points too that other countries have problems with, and it's not all bad like the news says." After we ...

... had a hard time navigating us to the Payas. There are street names on the map, but not on the streets in all cases. So, we ended up at the enormous Paya - Shwedagon. It is very beautiful and takes up a large amount of real estate. It is believed to be 2500 years old (others argue it was built between the 6th and 10th centuries). This is the one place that all people aspire to come to at least once in their lives. It was particularly busy because tomorrow is the ...

... everything about me, my family, life in England (I tell them its cold) and they all sit and wait patiently for the answers while coming up with new and weird questions ("Did you have a love story at school?" was perhaps the strangest). I feel talked out by the end of it, but we go with a couple of students to a Tea house and drink coffee (Surprise!). We say we must leave and bid them goodbye on ...

... even than what we'd ever experienced on all our third world rides so far, leaving Jesse's ass numb days after. At any rate, we made it back to the capital amid news, on the day before Thanksgiving, that Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi International Airport was shut down to all incoming and outgoing flights. We'd first been privy to this bit of shocking news in Inle Lake- courtesy of our dragon guest house lady, who for all her 'assertiveness' in the way of sales, seemed pretty ...

... its application, which is done in a thick swipe across each cheek, almost haphazard-looking to an unfamiliar eye. Many people also apply it to their nose, chin, or forehead, or in a mask-like coating all over their face. Some put a thin layer on their arms as well. Against dark-brown Burmese skin it stands out very boldly, in a way that most Westerners would consider ugly--like clown's make-up--but which the Burmese consider beautiful. Piu serves as a type of ...