You don’t have to go very far to find a Buddhist site of one kind or another in Yangon. While the iconic Shwedagon Paya looks down on the city from its hilltop, at street level there are countless pagodas, monasteries and shrines in various sizes and states of repair. This slightly ramshackle monastery was just across the street from my hotel, and if I was better at keeping notes while I travel, I’d be able to tell you its name.
Even though my autumn trip to Myanmar wasn’t that long ago, I’m already feeling a little nostalgic about it, perhaps because the weather here in Hanoi has turned cold and wet, perhaps because I’ve barely picked up my camera since I got back. It’s a familiar pattern for me: I go away on a trip, take loads of pictures, then come home and spend so much time sorting and editing that I neglect to take any new pictures, thus losing all the momentum that I built up while I was away. I’m a simple man, and my tiny brain can only cope with one project at a time, it would seem. I know that some photographers always have a camera with them, and are constantly shooting, but it’s never really been that way for me. I tend to have periods of activity, followed by periods of, for want of a better word, sloth. This used to bother me a lot more than it does now. I may not be taking any new photographs at the moment, but I still have more from the Myanmar trip to go through, and I know that, sooner or later, the urge to do something new will take hold again.
In the meantime, here are a few more from Shan state in northern Myanmar, taken in Pyin Oo Lwin and Hsipaw in November last year.
Some pictures from Hsipaw, in Shan state, Myanmar: market portraits and details; a mosque and a stupa; a view from a hill; sweetcorn (ugh); and a walk along the railway tracks.
Hsipaw’s main mosque, with Buddhist pagoda in the background
Ugh
Pyin Oo Lwin, a couple of hours from Mandalay and at the edge of the Shan Plateau, has a little bit of everything I like about Myanmar. The mixture of cultures and influences – Burmese, Shan, Chinese, Indian, British – can be seen in the people, food and architecture, while its cooler climate and slightly quirky atmosphere reminded me a little of Dalat in Vietnam.
Without an H 