My Favorite Place: Mrauk U, Burma

I love ruins. I’ve climbed Mayan pyramids, sat in Greek amphitheaters and walked lost Roman roads. It’s not the literal history that draws me -- I don't care that much about kings I'd never heard of before -- but the atmosphere that feels the dream worlds Chip, Nancy and I would concoct in my backyard fort as a kid.

A lot of people have been calling Burma's main archaeological site Bagan's 4000 temples as something like 'the next Angkor Wat' (actually I make the case today for BBC.com/travel and post a video on Lonely Planet). To me, the ancient Rakhaing capital of Mrauk U -- lost in a remote corner of Burma by the Bangladesh border -- offers more. A site that's not as expansive or artistic as Bagan or Angkor Wat, but more "alive," as there's full overlap between village life and archeological site of 700-some 500-year-old stupas and temples.


Actually I learned the fun begins before you get there. No public roads reach Mrauk U. So after a short flight from Yangon to the faded port city of Sittwe, I boarded a huge double-deck local ferry for the lazy six-hour ride up the Kaladan River, east from the Bay of Bengal. We stopped every hour or so to let on locals, who sat around me in wooden lounge chairs and snacked on insects sold on the stick. One monk in a saffron robe sitting next to me pointed out the tallest of a distant range of Dr Seuss-like hills. “That is Mt 500 Ducks."


A few hours later, the sky then darkened and filled with a smear of thousands of stars, I wrapped up in a borrowed blanket to escape the chill. I could barely see a few feet before my face, then -- as Mrauk U grew neared -- I could just make out on the onshore chatter of a barely visible group of local men, wearing skirt-like longyis, circling a fire before a thatch hut. It felt like a trip back in time.

Early depictions of Mrauk U sometimes show it as a dreamy sci-fi cityscape of skyscrapers connected by air towers. The real thing is just as magical. More people should know about it.

Anthony Pond: The Ring Train of Yangon

Whether in Myanmar (Burma), India, China, Viet Nam or elsewhere, trains or trams are wonderful to meet local people, and photograph them.

In Yangon (Rangoon), a local railway line does a loop from the city’s main station through the inner city, suburbs and outlying villages, before returning to the station some 3 hours later. The "circular" is a train for local people, offering hard (and worn) wooden seats, sputtering fans, and with occasionally stuck windows, but it's a fascinating insight into local life.

Anthony Pond has just produced another audio slideshow of black and white (toned with Silver Efex Pro 2) photographs, and which were made during a ride on the circular train of Yangon. My very favorite is the one of the elderly nun.

Anthony worked for more than two decades in the criminal courts in California as an attorney for the Public Defender’s Office. Now pursuing his passion for travel and photography, he traveled repeatedly to South East Asia and India, amongst other places, to capture life, the people and the culture.

He is joining me on my The Oracles of Kerala Photo Expedition/Workshop™ in a few weeks, and I certainly look forward to be working with him during it.

19 random Burma photos

Anthony Pond: On Yangon's Wharf

Here's an audio slideshow of black & white stills by Anthony Pond on the porters at Yangon's wharf. It's his first attempt to use SoundSlides and Audacity, and I am impressed.

Anthony Pond worked for more than two decades in the criminal courts in California as an attorney for the Public Defender’s Office. Now pursuing his passion for travel and photography, he traveled repeatedly to South East Asia and India, amongst other places, to capture life, the people and the culture.

His photography website has galleries of his work from Laos, Nepal, India, Burkina Faso, Mali, Cuba, Mexico and Cambodia, as well as others.

Anthony is joining me on my The Oracles of Kerala Photo Expedition/Workshop™ this coming March, and I certainly look forward to be working with him during it.

Brenden Allen: Mandalay To Mytikina

Photo © Brenden Allen-All Rights Reserved

Since Myanmar is all in the news, with Aung San Suu Kyi meeting with Hillary Clinton during her official trip to that country -- the first visit by a U.S. Secretary of State in half a century -- which is described by some as a breakthrough moment in U.S.-Burma relations, I thought it timely to feature some fresh photographic work from Myanmar.

Brenden Allen's Mandalay To Mytikina is the result of 27 hours aboard a train (described as a 'rattler') from Central Burma to Kachin State in December 2011. Myitkyina is the capital city of Kachin State in Myanmar (Burma), and is located 1,480 kilometers from Yangon, and 785 kilometers from Mandalay. Mandalay is the second-largest city and the last royal capital of Burma, and 700 kilometers north of Yangon.

Brenden is a photographer from Brisbane, Australia. From his sparse biography, it seems he can be found mostly in South East Asia, or moving around Burma and its borders. His galleries also include square format photographs (possibly Holga) of South West Bolivia.

Dilla Djalil Daniel: Myanmar

Photo © Dilla Djalil-Daniel- All Rights Reserved

Photo © Dilla Djalil-Daniel- All Rights Reserved

Photo © Dilla Djalil-Daniel- All Rights Reserved

Dilla Djalil-Daniel is a photographer currently living in Jakarta, and just returned from Myanmar where she photographed the country's remarkable people and its stunning scenery.   

Although she travels around the world for her photography, especially in Asia and has a impressive portfolio that ought to be shown on her own personal website, Dilla has yet to have one. It's a shame really...but The Travel Photographer blog features her work as much as it can. Dilla is also an alum of the Istanbul and Buenos Aires Foundry Photojournalism Workshops. In Buenos Aires, she attended the class given by the incomparable Maggie Steber.


Most of her work is in black and white, which I think is courageous on her part especially when depicting countries as color-rich as Myanmar. The top photograph is of the famous Inle Lake fishermen, and is an obligatory scene for photographers visiting the region, however the lower two are different, in the sense that they are more photojournalistic in composition and vision. I particularly like the bottom candid scene of the Buddhist nuns. 

David Lazar: Myanmar Redux

Photo © David Lazar-All Rights Reserved

I featured David Lazar's work on The Travel Photographer blog a few months, and having learned that he had uploaded two new galleries unto his website,  I was eager to take a look. I was not disappointed.

The first gallery is titled Return To Myanmar, and features about 45 portraits and set up photographs made in this beautiful country. These are heavily processed and over saturated, perhaps following the style of many South East Asian photographers who like such effects.

The other gallery is titled Bangladesh In Portrait, and has just under 50 facial portraits and environmental portraits made of Bangladeshis. A far different photographic approach than that of the so-called Bangladeshi school...which is usually black & white, edgy, gritty and super contrasty.

David Lazar is a musician and photographer from Brisbane, and who loves traveling and capturing moments of life through photography. He has won a number of awards and recognitions for his photography which include Shutterbug Awards 2011, Kumuka Travel Photo Contest 2010, Lonely Planet Photo Competition 2010, Asian Geographic - Poetry in Motion Competition 2010, Intrepid Photography Competition 2009...and many more.

David Lazar: The Monks Of Burma

Photo © David Lazar-All Rights Reserved

After the 10 days or so I spent amidst photojournalism work, I thought I'd revert to pure travel photography through the work of David Lazar; a collection of absolutely gorgeous portraits of Burmese monks which are certain to thrill and impress the legions of photographers who traveled to this magnificent land, and who especially favor simple portraiture work. I know quite a number of those photographers, and also know of a few who will be traveling soon to see for themselves what Burma has to offer.

Not only are the portraits just spectacular, but the gallery's presentation is also superb. The gallery of large images is on the Visions of Indochina website.

David Lazar is a musician and photographer from Brisbane, and who loves traveling and capturing moments of life through photography. He has won a number of awards and recognitions for his photography which include Shutterbug Awards 2011, Kumuka Travel Photo Contest 2010, Lonely Planet Photo Competition 2010, Asian Geographic - Poetry in Motion Competition 2010, Intrepid Photography Competition 2009...and many more.

I'm not at all surprised. David's photographs are the type that win awards consistently.

Dede Pickering: Myanmar 2011

Photo © Dede Pickering-All Rights Reserved

Once again, Dede Pickering has just returned from her photographic travels and this time it's from Myanmar (Burma).  Having retired from the corporate world, she became a photographer, and traveled to Antarctica, Mongolia, Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, China, Cambodia, Peru, Patagonia, Kosovo, Albania, Rwanda, New Zealand, Guatemala, South East Asia and has made multiple trips to Africa and India, as well as Cuba.

From the many photographs in Dede's Myanmar gallery, I stopped at the lovely one above of young nuns. Girls, as boys more commonly do, take vows during ordination, and practice the same activities as do the boys for monkhood, with the only visual being that they wear pink instead of red robes.

Dede's Myanmar gallery has 34 images, out of which 18 are verticals...an almost perfect balance with her horizontals, If it had been my photographs, the gallery would have been all horizontals!! It's always interesting to appreciate and study other travel photographers' points of views and compositional styles.

Fotopedia & NatGeo Traveler: Dreams of Burma

Fotopedia, the publisher of popular apps for the iPhone and iPad, as well as the creator of a collaborative photographic encyclopedia, is working with National Geographic Traveler magazine to introduce a new, free app, “Dreams of Burma”, a spectacular digital exploration of the beauty of Burma.

“Dreams of Burma” is a visual journey packed with more than 1,000 stunning photographs, virtual excursions, trip-building capabilities, social tools for sharing photos, beautiful slideshows and wallpapers.

“If you have been to Burma, this app will transport you back there in an instant. And if you haven’t seen it yet, you may fall in love.” Jean Marie Hullot, CEO of Fotopedia.

I've downloaded the app, and I have started exploring it. I must say that the photography is gorgeous...work by photographers such as Bertrand Devimeux, Eric Lafforgue, Eric Daney, Jean-Marie Huliot, Giancarlo de Luca and many others grace the app that glides effortless and beautifully on the iPad screen.

I highly recommend it...it's free, it beautiful and it's informative. What's not to like?

If you seek more of images of Burma's people, drop by my own People of the Thanaka.

As a footnote: I have no relationship whatsoever with Fotopedia. It's just a gorgeous application.

Quinn Ryan Mattingly: Burma's Monasteries

Photo © Quinn Ryan Mattingly-All Rights Reserved

This is the second time that Quinn Ryan Mattingly's work appears on The Travel Photographer blog. He's a documentary photographer based in Saigon, and most of his work is related to documenting a wide range of subjects, including social issues, which can include documenting a Vietnamese leprosy center and a home for the aged, a behind the scenes Saigon circus, Burmese television commercial shoots, and street scenes of Yangon.

I liked one of Quinn's photo galleries in particular which he titled Burma IV: Life On The Path.  He tells us that a monk approached him in Yangon, and after a few friendly pleasantries, was invited to the monk's monastery. This provided him an insider look into Buddhist monastic life in Burma.

By all means, poke around Quinn's website, which has interesting still galleries and multimedia.

Incidentally, Quinn is one of the many photographers who uses PhotoShelter for his website and galleries, as well for selling his work.

If you want to learn how you can sell your prints, PhotoShelter has issued a free downloadable PDF guide to help you out.

Magdalena Sole: Burma

Photo © Magdalena Sole- All Rights Reserved

Magdalena Sole is a Spanish photographer based in New York City, with a MFA from Columbia University and a 20-year background in visual arts. Her work spans graphic design, film and photography, and a client base ranging from Fortune 500 corporates to private collectors.

Her biography tells us she prefers to work with a Leica, and works in color because it expresses culture best.

Her travel portfolio has galleries from Brazil, Kamagasaki, Japan, Mexico and Vencie, however I chose to feature her photographs from Burma. Her photographs are mostly street and urban scenes...tableaux as I prefer to call them.

Random Photo: Favorite Sandwich

I had the privilege recently to speak at David Farley's Restless Legs reading series at Lolita in the Lower East Side. I wrote something for the event, called "The Hopes & Dreams of Our Travel Generation's Contributions to the Betterment of Travel are Hinged on our Collective Ability, and Willingness, to Celebrate the Mundane along with the Marvellous."

Aka "Sandwiches."

It ended with my favorite sandwich:

I had it a few years ago, just as I was leaving BURMA. I was wrapping up a six-week research assignment in a country many said you shouldn’t go to because of the military government. I showed up at the Yangon airport with a $1 or so of unused kyat wadded in my pocket and an appetite to fill the three hours till my flight left for Singapore. The city had just opened a huge new airport – I zipped past immigration and found myself alone – just a sea of polished white tile and a dozen empty storefronts. No other travelers were there yet, and there was nothing to eat.

I saw a couple uniformed local women sweeping the spotless floor. One had thanakha tree bark-paste dotting her tanned cheeks in the image of perfect suns. I asked her if I could go out for something from the sidewalk vendor, visible from the departure lounge window. She immediately set her broom down and shuffled off in her flip-flops to ask, then shuffled back to say no, and quickly offered to retrieve something for me. It’s the sort of sweetness I found throughout the country.

Soon, she returned with a portable feast: a cup of tea, a bottled water, a bag of chips, and a Styrofoam container with two sad croissants, each stuffed with a cold hot dog. Sandwiches, YES!, I thought. I tried to give her my money, but even though the minimal cost was easily more than her day’s wage, she refused.

Charles Pertwee: The Khumbu

Photo © Charles Pertwee-All Rights Reserved

Charles Pertwee is a photojournalist, known for his reportage in crisis stricken locations such as Banda Aceh and Afghanistan. He graduated from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London with a degree in the History of East Asia, and took up photography soon after graduation. He has since worked for such diverse clients as The New York Times, Wired, CNN Traveller, Marie Claire, Universal Music and Nike. He's currently based in Nantes, France after living in Singapore. 

His galleries are all worthy of praise, but the two that appealed to me the most are of his work of The Khumbu (in black & white) and of Myanmar (Burma).

The Khumbu is located in northeastern Nepal, and the famous Tengboche Buddhist monastery is there. Tengboche is the largest gompa of the region.

Human Rights Watch: Burma Defenders

The Human Rights Watch feature Burma Defenders is timed to coincide with the first elections to be held in the repressed country in more than 20 years. Burma has been run by a junta of army generals who have silenced any opposition to their brutal regime with human rights abuses and by silencing any dissent.

Political observers are awaiting the elections and wondering if civil unrest flare up after what is widely perceived as a sham election on November 7, and whether Burma's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, be released when her sentence ends on November 13.

Human Rights Watch and photographer Platon have teamed up to photograph opposition members, former political prisoners, and journalists who have sought political refuge in neighboring Thailand.

Platon is a photographer who attended London's St. Martin's School of Art, holds a BA in Graphic Design and a MA in Photography and Fine Art from the Royal College of Art. Now living in New York, he continues to shoot portrait, and documentary work for a range of international publications, including The New Yorker, Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Esquire, GQ, and The Sunday Times Magazine.

Andrea Johnson: Burma

Andrea Johnson is a photojournalist specializing in documenting the wine and spirits, food, and travel industries. Her photographs regularly appear in related publications such as Wine Spectator, Food and Wine, VIA, Northwest Palate, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Additionally, Andrea has photographed three books: Passion for Pinot (Ten Speed Press, 2008), Essential Wines and Wineries of the Pacific Northwest, (Workman Press, 2010), and Luscious – 100 recipes and Insider Stories from Oregon Fruit Growers, Artisans, and Chefs (Arnica, 2011).

Take a look at her photographs of Burma in the above movie, which she made in February 2010. The fabulous Shwedagon Pagoda, the famed fishermen of Inle Lake, the monasteries with the Buddhist novices and nunneries with the pink-clad nuns, the Shin Laung initiates having their heads shaved, and the ageless U-Bein bridge are all captured by Andrea's lenses....and naturally, the Burmese smiling faces with thanaka paste.

I would have used a different transition between the photographs...I found the zoom-in too distractingly repetitive. The simple (and most common) cut transition is always the best, as it's the way we "see".

Jørgen Johanson: Kham & Amdo (Tibet)

Photo © Jørgen Johanson -All Rights Reserved
Jørgen Johanson went on his first trip to Asia in 1982, and completed the Annapurna circuit in Nepal. He was hooked from that moment on travel, photography and on Asian cultures.

He's a software development engineer for companies Norwegian companies, and recently took a 2-3 years sabbatical just to travel. Most of his travel has been trips to Asia, but also made some trips to Africa, where he photographed in Ethiopia and Niger. He's also enamored of India and China...but it's the Tibetan culture and the Himalayas that really fascinate him.

Take a look at Jørgen's Kham & Amdo photo galleries (he's got two on his website), and explore the other galleries which include Myanmar (some good shots of the fishermen of Lake Inle) and Bhutan (stop by the lovely photograph of Wangdi Phodrang Dzong in the mist).

Jørgen also self-published a book "Kham And Amdo" which is available on Blurb, which you can preview in its entirety.

Andrea Pistolesi: The Rohingya Refugees

Photo © Andrea Pistolesi-All Rights Reserved
Andrea Pistolesi is a pro in the full meaning of the word...a my kind of guy...a photographer who fuses travel and editorial imagery, and who's candid enough to say that professional travel photography as it existed is now extinct, and that travel publications and ancillary glossies are a dying breed. He espouses the view -like I do- that interesting visual stories are all around us, but that we need to broaden our scope by creating new ways of distribution (think of the new VII Magazine, as an example).

Andrea was born and lives in Florence, and studied geography at the local university, evolving in a travel photographer specializing in geographic and global social reportage. He published books on exotic destinations (Indonesia, New Zealand, Morocco, South Africa, The Land of Buddha, Hinduism, Eastern Christianity), and amongst others, has recently published a book on prayers of major religions.

He was widely published in CN Traveller (Italy), Delta Sky, Departures, Elle, l'Espresso, Figaro Mag, Gente Viaggi, Geo, Gulliver, Hemispheres, Islands, LATimes Mag, National Geographic, NYT Sophisticated Traveler, Photo, Rutas del Mundo, Smithsonian Mag, Time, Travel & Leisure, and many others.

Andrea's website is a cornucopia of travel and editorial photography, which is bound to give viewers hours of enjoyment, and provide photographers immense inspiration and ideas.

I spent a while on his website, trying to decide which of his galleries to feature on this blog. It was difficult, and I changed my mind often. Finally, I chose the brilliant reportage of the Rohingya refugees in southern Bangladesh.

As Andrea describes them, the Rohingya are the unwanted of southwestern Asia. An ethnic Muslim minority, they have no rights in Burma and try to flee across the borders with Bangladesh where only a few earn a refugee status. For others, it's a life of squalid illegal camps, an unending odyssey falling prey to human traffickers, to organ traffickers, to sex rings and to pedophiles.

Also read Andrea's blog post Requiem For Travel Photography. And don't miss his work on the Nats (spirits of Mynamar) and on the Bugis Seafarers.

Highly recommended as a photographer to follow.

David Lazar: Myanmar (Burma)

Photo © David Lazar -All Rights Reserved
Here's an introduction to David Lazar, a photographer and musician hailing all the way from Brisbane, Australia. With a long roster of awards under his belt, David was the Overall Winner in the 2009 Intrepid Photography Competition, won the Best Wildlife 2008 category and the Best Culture and Portrait 2007 category in the Peregrine Photography of the World Competition. He also won the Best Landscape 2007 category in the Intrepid Adventure Photo Competition, and was published in JPGMag, Intrepid Travel Magazines, Digital Camera, and Digital Photo of the UK.

He recently traveled to Burma, and returned with lovely images of this wonderful country and of its people. These images are grouped under a gallery he titled "Myanmar, Say A Little Prayer". Also explore David's other galleries of the Middle East and India.

David tells us that he was drawn to the designs of the Thanaka paste on the women and children’s faces. This is the traditional Burmese paste made the bark of trees and applied to the skin each day to keep it moisturized and protected from the sun. Thanaka has been used by Burmese women for over 2000 years.

Books: Claudia Wiens: Burma

Claudia Wiens was based in Cairo, and is now in Istanbul working as a freelance photographer, and is represented by Getty Images. She has now published a book of her photographs of Burma and titled "Of Dung-Beetle Messengers And Infamous Crickets" which, although I haven't seen yet, does provide Claudia's interesting visual narrative of this lovely country and its people. Have a good look at the section involving Nats.

I'm glad that Claudia chose this blurry image for her book's cover since, as regular readers of this blog know, I'm enormously partial to motion blurred images myself. Good choice, Claudia! For further images of Burma and other galleries, visit Claudia's website.

I met Claudia at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop (FPW) in Mexico City, where she worked on a project involving female Lucha Libre wrestlers.

A previous post of Claudia Wiens on TTP is here.