Category Archives: Every Day Life Myanmar truly is “The Golden Land.” From the mines to the temples, gold is everywhere. Shwedagon Pagoda, for example, is covered in 60 tons of gold, pounded into thin leaves. Gold is an integral part of Burmese life. Every day, faithful Burmese apply gold leaf to their favourite Buddha images as offerings. So much gold leaf has been…  We are having property management problems yet again. Our little holiday cottage, which sits perched on a quiet beach in Koh Samui, Thailand, has been orphaned once more. The situation is not as serious as it was 18 months ago, but it is still distressing to try to deal with agents and cleaners and bills when we are…  I’ve said it before: the hospitality, friendliness – and general willingness to be be followed around and photographed – of people in small communities off-the-beaten-track, amazes me. The sun was barely up as we descended over the Mandalay region last September, landing at that beautiful, modern facility in the middle of nowhere: the brand new Mandalay International…  One of the many things I love about being in Asia, is people’s willingness to be photographed. Personally, I don’t like having my picture taken. If I’m in the sights of a lens rather than looking through a viewfinder, I get tense and awkward – which results in a bad photograph; only proving, through a…  After thirty-six hours of airplanes and airports, and sixteen hours of sleep, I’m sitting on my balcony with a coffee while welcome swallows and noisy miners swoop around my head. My ears are ringing with the screech of lorikeets and rosellas as they jockey for position in our trees, and light is falling on the… |
|
.jpg)
.jpg)
This site is still under construction: Watch this space!