Travelogue
Mandalay - The City of Gems - 2 July 2011
Mandalay is home to one million people and is the second-largest city in Myanmar. The city is regarded as the commercial hub of the north of the country. It was Burma’s last royal capital, and has been immortalised in books, poetry and song. “The Road to Mandalay” coined by Rudyard Kipling, refers to the journey up the Ayeyarwaddy River from the former capital of Rangoon during British colonial rule, on the boats of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company. Back in those days Burma was known as the back of beyond, and the journey took 5-6 days. British commerce in Burma was pioneered by the British East India Company, and for two centuries “Golden days in a golden land” was how the British described commerce in Burma. Burmese nationalists naturally took a somewhat different view. The IFC was a Scottish innovation and built in the Clyde shipyards. The Scottish had a strong Burma connection and had been travelling there for 200 years. Many of its vessels failed to survive the Japanese occupation however, the retreating British forces scuttling as many of them as possible. The IFC was also naked in its racial exclusiveness, barring Burmese from cabin class, or from any form of skilful employment, and was earmarked early on for expropriation by the newly independent Burma after 1948. I got to take the other road to Mandalay, the new highway built with Chinese assistance, straight up the middle of Myanmar, passing the new capital of Naypyidaw on the
Yangon - The End of Strife - 28 June 2011
A visitor once described swooping down to Rangoon and central Burma’s “flat green, soggy plains overwhelmed by angry monsoon clouds in unbearable heat.” Yangon formerly known as Rangoon, is barely more than an hour by plane from Bangkok and six-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT but in some ways is light years away from the rest of the world, a
Burmese Days - 24 June 2011
Practical Information - Republic of the Union of Myanmar – Visitor GuideMany visitors I met using guidebooks complained that information on cost and travel, especially travel times, was incorrect, so here's an update.VisasVisitors to Myanmar require a visa. This can be either a tourist of business visa. Visas are available from the Embassy
Langkawi - The Jewel of Kedah - 22 June 2011
The chatty and helpful lady at the Penang Tourist Office by the dockside sold me my ticket to Langkawi. “Be sure to arrive at least 30 minutes before sailing” she said “and ask the bus driver to drop you here outside the door, not at the bus stop, which is someway down the road.” I did and he did. All Penang’s modern bus fleet, air-conditioned
Penang - Pearl of the Orient - 18 June 2011
Penang was Britain’s oldest colonial possession in Southeast Asia, the place where Raffles had started his overseas career with the East India Company. It was also breathtakingly beautiful. It was said that few places merited the title Pearl of the Orient as much as Penang, with its fringe of perfect beaches, its variegated interior of spice
Kuala Lumpur - City of Towers - 14 June 2011
In the 1850s Malaysia’s future capital, Kuala Lumpur, was a mining settlement fought over by rival Chinese gangs. The conflict often resulted in open warfare, prompting the British who then ruled the Federation of Malaya to step in, least the lucrative work at the mines ceased altogether. During its early times, Kuala Lumpur had many
Melaka - Guns, God, and Museums - 12 June 2011
One of the wonders of travel is that you go somewhere you’ve never been before anywhere in the world, know not a soul, arrive tired, hungry and with nowhere to sleep, and within a relatively short space of time be settled in like you’ve been there all your life. I can’t replicate the appreciation of that doing anything
Singapore - Waiting To Exhale - 9 June 2011
Singapore is a sea-level blip barely north of the Equator. Once upon a time it was sparsely populated, disease-infested island ringed by mangrove swamps. Needless to say it had one of the unhealthiest climates in the world and was the kind of graveyard that killed off people in their droves. Until the early 1800s it was a backwater, a
Asuncion - The Mother of Cities - 31 May 2011
Asuncion is the capital and largest city of landlocked Paraguay, a country rarely on the radar and for most, off the beaten track. Steamy tropical heat, tin-pot dictators, violence, tragedy and cultural melting pot, Paraguay seemed to fulfil stereotypical views for many of Latin America. True, during its history, Paraguay has suffered
