Myanmar/Burma is a very interesting place. An author named Rudyard Kipling once said that it is "unlike any place you know about". From what I saw, this was true!
For many years, Myanmar was a military dictatorship. Do you know what that means? The government was run by the military and no one was allowed to say anything bad about them, even though they were very mean to the people. A famous Burmese woman named Aung San Suu Kyi was not allowed to leave her house for 15 years because she disagreed with the government! Only in the past few years has Myanmar started to become a democracy. We are lucky to be born in a country where we are allowed to say what we think and vote for who we think should be in charge.
You may wonder why sometimes I call the country Myanmar and sometimes I say Burma. Burma was the name of the country for many years, but it was renamed Myanmar in 1989. Some people think it is not right of the government to rename a country, so you will often hear people say both.
The MV Explorer stopped in Yangon, which has a population of about 5 million people and is the biggest city in Myanmar.
This photo was taken at a place called Schwedagon Pagoda. A pagoda is a type of temple for a religion called Buddhism.
Do you see the boys in red robes in the picture? They are Buddhist monks! Approximately eighty percent of the population of Myanmar are Buddhist. It is very common for young men to be a monk for a couple weeks in their life. They shave their heads, wake up very early, must ask other people to give them food, and are not allowed to eat after noon. However, we also saw a lot of monks with smart phones and iPads taking pictures! It felt strange to see someone dressed in a very old fashion with very new technology.
On my third day I traveled with my friends to Bagan. Bagan is an ancient city in Myanmar. During the 11th to 13th century, over 10,000 Buddhist temples were built! Now, only about 2200 remain.
When we climbed to the top of a temple and looked across the plains and all the pagodas at sunrise and sunset, it was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
At sunrise, many tourists pay to be taken above the plains in a hot air balloon.
Because it is very expensive I didn't get to do that, but I did get to see the balloons in the sky every morning!
One of the ways we got around Bagan was horse cart. We would tell a driver where we wanted to go and then bargain for the price of him taking us there. Another way we traveled was electric bikes. It took us a while to learn how to drive them but it was so much fun! They were perfect for zipping around on the little dirt paths between the temples.
Myanmar is going to change a lot in the next few years as more and more tourists arrive to see the beautiful country. I am very glad I got to visit now before it changes too much.
I'll do my best to answer your questions before I arrive in India!
Rebecca
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