A bike ride to welcome the Buddhist New Year

Along Lower Mingalardon Road, a young boy is dressed as a prince as part of a shinlaung hle pwe, a procession of aspirants heading for a monastery to take part in a ceremony to become Buddhist monks.

Whenever a new year rolls around, whether it be Gregorian (January 1) or Theravada Buddhist (mid-April), I try to start things off right by spending a significant portion of the day on my bicycle.

This year the Buddhist New Year started on April 17, a day during which I was road-tripping through Kayah State with my wife and step-kids. My first ride of the year was therefore deferred until April 19, the day after we returned to Yangon.

As a result of the Kayah road trip, I hadn’t cycled for more than a week, so I opted for simple, familiar 50km (30-mile) loop north of the city on mostly flat terrain but with a few short, gentle hills thrown in about one-third of the way through.

Although the route is mostly paved, I always use my mountain bike because 1) the roads are pretty rough, including a few sections that would be quite troublesome on a road bike; and 2) there is an off-road shortcut that I sometimes use when I feel the need to spend a few kilometers speeding along dirt single-track.

I live on the far northern end of Baho Road, about 20km from downtown Yangon, so it doesn’t take much effort to get out of the city: a few minutes riding on Baho, a right turn onto Lower Mingalardon Road, a few more minutes of traffic congestion until I cross Kyayae Pin Road, and then I’m out in the countryside.

Sort of. The bumpy road – which skirts an industrial park and passes through several suburban villages as it wends its way up the west side of the Hlawga Reservoir – still sees a fair amount of use, but the cars and trucks are generally slow-moving and drivers usually eschew the homicidal tendencies of mid-city vehicle operators.

On this occasion I was lucky to witness a procession of a dozen or so young boys riding ponies and dressed as princes as they made their way to local monastery to have their heads shaven and don the robes of Buddhist monks. The rural version of this ceremony – where participants are conveyed by horse and bullock cart – is a bit more inspiring than the urban approach, which normally involves convoys of cars and trucks blaring earsplitting music.

An ordination procession along Lower Mingalardon Road.

A few kilometers later I passed the Dagon Beer brewery, and then turned right onto a hilly, winding, lightly trafficked road past forestland, a Chinese cemetery and a typical Mon-style Buddhist pagoda.

Up until a few years ago this was a dirt road, and during a bike ride out here in September 2007 I discovered that this backwater area was being utilized as a staging ground for a convoy of trucks carrying Burmese soldiers – they were being brought into the city to raid monasteries and brutalize Buddhist monks who were protesting against the military government at the time.

About halfway along this road, concrete tracks split off to the right and lead to a gate that provides access to a network of dirt trails around Hlawga Reservoir. This is the off-road shortcut mentioned above: There’s some fun, challenging mountain biking back there, but on this occasion I decided to stick with the pavement for the longer, mellower road loop.

The right-hand fork leads to dirt trails around Hlawga Reservoir.

I sped past Hlawga Wildlife Park, which I have described in a previous post, turned right into the town of Htaukkyant, and then made a left onto the highway leading to the town of Bago. (Turning right leads past the Htaukkyant Allied War Cemetery and back to Yangon.) Passing through Htaukkyant requires negotiating an insane scrum of buses and taxis obstructing traffic flow as they drop off and pick up passengers. On the way out of town I caught the draft of a motorcycle cruising along at a perfect 40kph, which allowed me to make quick work of this busy section of highway until I turned onto pleasantly peaceful Number 7 Road just before the Htaukkyant toll booth.

Then it was back to peaceful and quiet cycling on a dead-flat stretch of road through an idyllic world of open paddy fields, white egrets and farmers travelling by bullock cart.

Traffic is so light out here that it’s not unusual to see the road being used as a space to spread harvested rice for drying in the sun.

But the Edenic sheen proves itself to be less complete than first supposed: A few years ago, small shanty villages started appearing along certain sections of the road. These were built by people who were unable to keep up with skyrocketing rents in Yangon and had to move into the countryside just to survive.

These small houses were built by people who can no longer afford rent in downtown Yangon.

After about 20 minutes of cycling on Number 7 Road, I turned right at a government-run hepatitis vaccine factory. By this time, even though it was only about 10:30am, temperatures had reached 38C (100F). I’ve never been one to complain (much) about cycling in the heat, but I was definitely starting to feel the effects of not having exercised for a week.

The hepatitis vaccination factory.

This stretch of road is a bit peculiar: There are many patches where the metal bars meant to reinforce the concrete have instead emerged from the crumbling roadway like the dangerous tentacles of a retro-futuristic roboctopus. In other places, dirt and rubble appear to have simply been dumped into the traffic lanes. This state of affairs has persisted for several years, with no apparent attempt to make repairs.

Roboctopus road hazard.

Why a mountain bike is better than a road bike, even for the “fully paved” route.

The road eventually gets better, and it doesn’t take long to figure out why as you pass through a neighborhood of ritzy houses and the turnoff to the Mingalardon Golf and Country Club.

Compare this with the shanty houses just a few kilometers back down the road.

By this time I had been cycling for nearly two hours. I passed through the first red light I had seen since crossing Kyayae Pin Road at the beginning of the ride, and now I was back on a six-lane section of Kyayae Pin and pedaling up the steepest hill of the route. (Locals on their single-speed clunkers were forced to dismount and push.) I then made a left onto the Yangon-Bago highway for the busy 10-minute stretch to Lanthit Road, which was the turnoff back to my neighborhood.

This ride normally takes me about 2 hours and 5 minutes, but in this case I spent about 2 hours and 20 minutes covering the distance. Considering my lack of fitness, even that was a little too far and a little too fast on a day that was just a little too hot.

Universal themes: Bringing Asian literature to Western readers

 

Among the foreign participants in February’s Irrawaddy Literary Festival in Mandalay were a handful of literary agents and authors interested in exploring ways to introduce the works of Myanmar writers to a wider audience of English-language readers.
While not all of these visitors had direct experience with Myanmar, many were well-versed in the challenges of pitching Asian stories to British and American publishers, and they were under no illusions that the situation here would be any different.
Hong Kong-based literary agent Kelly Falconer – who describes herself as representing “Asian authors, experts on Asia, and writers living in Asia, be they Asian or not” – said she looks for works that will sell in the English-language market and have appeal to Western readers.
“I’m looking for fine writing, something that really captures my heart and takes my breath away, and that I hope will have a similar effect on anyone who reads it in the UK or the USA,” she said.
Falconer – whose clients include poet Ko Ko Thett, co-editor and translator of the 2012 anthology of Myanmar poetry Bones Will Crow – said that while she thinks the appeal of Asian literature is growing in the West, there are many challenges to overcome, including the tendency for agents, editors and readers to “reach out for the familiar”.
“I think there are editors and agents who are looking for something to confirm their prejudices … Readers in the West often want something that’s very familiar. They’re reading about the Cultural Revolution in China and are still trying to understand how China has reached the point it has today,” she said.
“But my fiction writers are writing about what’s going on now, and I’m finding it challenging to convince the West that these are the fresh voices of Asia.”
Michael Vatikiotis, a writer and journalist who has published several fiction and nonfiction works on Southeast Asia, agreed that the world of publishing often relies on perpetuating stereotypes.
“A publisher will fixate on something that’s worked – the Harry Potter of India – and everything else just falls off a cliff,” he said.
He cited Indonesia – the subject of much of his writing – as an example of a country that can be a hard sell to Western readers.
“Indonesia is probably one of the most colorful and interesting countries in the world … [but] there’s a rather bleak view of Indonesia – that it’s a dark, forbidding place that people do not really enjoy reading about.”
Writer Dipika Mukherjee, whose 2011 novel Thunder Demons is set in Malaysia, said she constantly struggles with the issue of how to connect with readers in the West.
“Malaysia is not a country that is very big in the American imagination. I think places like Thailand are a lot larger in terms of what people know about it,” she said. “So although there is interest, I think I have a much larger following in Malaysia, where they really get what I was trying to do with this book.”
Kerry Glencorse, a literary agent based in London who represents Golden Parasol (2013) author Wendy Law-Yone, said many readers prefer being “spoon-fed” stories that are easy to digest, making it difficult for books about unfamiliar cultures to break out of a small niche.
“But there are books like [Chinese author Jung Chang’s] Wild Swans from other cultures that have gone on to be huge successes. They can be really big. It’s just trying to find the right one,” she said.
“If you happen to hit upon a story that really works for whatever reason, then I think there’s great opportunity because there is a hunger and appetite for literature from these places and for a different point of view – especially one like Myanmar that has been closed for so long.”
Marysia Juszczakiewicz, who founded the Peony Literary Agency in Hong Kong, said she tries to find stories that “speak to an international audience” and that “are not so steeped in that culture that people outside have no comprehension of it”.
One of the writers she represents is Duncan Jepson, the Hong Kong-based author of the novels All the Flowers in Shanghai (2012) and Emperors Once More (2014) and former managing editor of Asia Literary Review.
“You do end up thinking, ‘We can’t publish this because it’s too esoteric.’ It’s a story about Laos or some aspect of Cambodia that people think is too arcane,” Jepson said of his work at the literary review.
“But I was interested in communicating to a broad audience about things that are happening, so that there is greater awareness and understanding. It’s a slow process.”
For many Asian authors, regional idiosyncrasies manifest themselves not only in subject matter but also in writing style, which only adds to the challenge of cross-cultural publishing.
Myanmar author Ma Thanegi – who has written several English-language nonfiction works, including the travelogue The Native Tourist (2005) and the prison memoir Nor Iron Bars a Cage (2013) – said the format and characteristics of English and Myanmar literature are very different.
“I can be irreverent in English, but the written word is taken very seriously by the Burmese – especially for a woman who is no longer young and ‘should be dignified’ – unless it is an all-out complete satire, which is also rather rare. Burmese satirical books often have the subtitle ‘satire’ just in case a reader misunderstands and gets angry,” she said.
Juszczakiewicz, who represents Chinese writers such as Su Tong, author of Raise the Red Lantern (1990), and 2012 Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan, said Chinese novels are often constructed differently from Western works.
“[Chinese novels] are often third-person, and there often isn’t the development of character or psychological analysis to the same level that you would get in an English-language or European novel. This is simply the difference in cultures,” she said.
Glencorse said one of the big challenges for Asian writers is keeping the style “simple enough” for Western readers.
“We are accustomed to a slightly more straightforward prose style,” she said. “That’s where the good translators come in because they can capture the atmosphere, lyricism and story … while also making it palatable to a Western reader who is accustomed to a slightly different way of reading.”
Like Glencorse, nearly everyone interviewed for this article brought up the thorny issue of translation, which Vatikiotis described as a “fine art”.
“It’s not just about rendering the story comprehensible,” he said. “A lot of dialogue is highly idiomatic, and how do you translate that idiomatic sense of dialogue into something that’s conveying the sense but also conveying meaning in a bigger sense of what the author is trying to get across?”
He said the shortage of good translators in Asia was a big deterrent to providing the rest of the world access to the region’s literature.
“I have nothing but respect for good translators because they are the people who are bringing the gift of literature into the wider world of comprehension. There’s a great wealth of writing out there that is not made available enough across the boundaries.”
Ma Thanegi has done her own small part by translating 25 short stories by Myanmar authors into English and anthologizing them in the 2009 book Selected Myanmar Short Stories.
“I translated the stories over a period of 40 years. Right from the start I chose the stories carefully so that the style or format would not be too different in a foreign language,” she said.
One difficulty Ma Thanegi faced was with editing. In her introduction to the anthology she notes that some editing was necessary for the sake of clarity, for which she asks the forgiveness of the writers, “since unlike in the publishing houses of the West we do not have a tradition of another person editing an author’s work”.
Falconer said there was a similar tendency in China’s publishing industry.
“Chinese writers tend to write and then they’re published. There isn’t a whole lot of editing that goes on. But I think a lot of them do appreciate being edited. I think that any writer should appreciate a good editor,” she said.
“The writers who refuse to be edited are usually the worst and most egotistical … The editor’s job is to make it the best it can possibly be for everybody’s reputation. It’s all for the better of the book.”
As for increasing the English-language readership of Asian literature, Ma Thanegi said that would require writers, translators and readers “to open their minds to consider the ‘newness’ of other cultures and not dismiss them out of hand”.
“They need to be curious with a positive attitude. And for us [in Myanmar], we need not to think that every Western thing or idea is ‘decadent’,” she said.
Juszczakiewicz said that in the end, good stories with universal themes have the power to overcome cultural differences.
“Though Asia is very much the future, at the end of the day selecting a work is the same as everywhere else: There’s only so far you can go with being culturally interesting. It’s got to have a good story, be it set in Burma or Vietnam, and the characters have to spring out from the pages,” she said.
“A good writer is able to speak to a wide audience, and on universal themes that affect us all, mainly through the beauty and strength of their writing.”
Glencorse agreed, citing as an example Myanmar writer Nu Nu Yi’s novel Mya Sein Pyar Kamaryut (Emerald Green Kamaryut), which received Myanmar’s National Literature Award in 1993 and is expected to be translated into English soon.
“In a small extract that I have read from Nu Nu Yi’s novel, there’s lots about the petty bickering between neighbors and the relationships, the jealousies, the friendships of all the different people living in this apartment block, which are the same as any apartment block anywhere in the world,” she said.
Nu Nu Yi, whose other works include the novel Smile as They Bow, which in 2007 was shortlisted for the Man Asia Literary Prize, said a good story told from the heart would always find an audience.
“A writer’s creation is dependent on her inspiration and her own feelings,” she said. “I don’t think there is much difference between the way Myanmar authors and Western authors tell their stories. If the story is good, it doesn’t matter where the author is from.”

 

Kengtung drummer ensures New Year isn’t a bummer

 

On the surface, the Thingyan water festival in Kengtung, Shan State, appears similar to celebrations helds throughout Myanmar in mid-April: Temporary stages are set up around Naung Tung Lake in the middle of town, and locals spend a few days driving around and around, reveling in the opportunity to splash and get splashed.

But Kengtung also has its own unique way of marking the festival that dates back to 1410, a year during which the area around Kengtung suffered from extreme drought and brushfires that decimated crops and livelihoods.

According to legend, the crisis prompted the region’s saophwa (Shan leader) to approach a famous astrologer named Oak Ta Ra in search of a remedy.

Oak Ta Ra calculated that Kengtung was, according to Myanmar astrology, a “Monday” region and was therefore aligned with the moon.

The town’s ethnic Yun rulers, on the other hand, were under the influence of Rahu, the mythical planet associated with the second half of Wednesday. The conflict between these two celestial bodies, the astrologer said, was the cause of the drought.

To solve the problem, Oak Ta Ra suggested that 24 ethnic Tai Loi from Moung Yang village be summoned to Kengtung, where they were dressed in red and white robes.

At 1pm on the second day of the water festival leading up to the new year, the Tai Loi were told to place a sacred instrument called the Nanda Bay Ri Heavenly Drum at the Sao Loang Kart nat (spirit) shrine at the centre of town and play it for 24 hours straight.

The astrologer further instructed that a clay sculpture of a frog (representing Rahu) with a crescent moon in its mouth be created at Long Kope near Nam Khun Creek in northeastern Kengtung. A stupa made of sand was also built at the site.

After the drum had been played nonstop for 24 hours, it was taken from its place at the nat shrine and carried by procession to Long Kope, where the town elders recited the Mingalar Sutra and paid respects to the frog and the stupa.

After the villagers followed the astrologer’s instructions, steady rain fell throughout the region, reviving crops and restoring the farmers’ livelihoods. The saophwa therefore ordered that the ceremony be repeated every year.

To this day the water festival in Kengtung begins with a ritual at the Sao Loang Kart shrine. The special Mingalar Conch is blown, and speeches are delivered by local authorities and the chair of the festival committee.

This is followed by a series of songs and dance performances by representatives of local schools, religious organizations and ethnic groups, including the Tai Loi who centuries ago had been charged with playing the sacred drum.

The next day the crowds reconvene at the Sao Loang Kart shrine, where at 1pm sharp the Nanda Bay Ri Heavenly Drum is placed on the stand where it will be played for the next 24 hours to expel evil spirits and welcome the auspicious New Year.

Once the drum is in place, a township official sprinkles it with scented water and strikes it seven times. Each beat is accompanied by an invocation, given in the following order:

May the authorities of the nation be blessed with grace and prosperity

May the authorities and the citizens be joyful and prosperous

May the nation be victorious and unharmed

May the nation be wealthy and commercially successful

May there be development and mutual understanding within the nation

May all be blessed eternally

May the sound of the drum echo throughout the universe

The drum is then handed over to a leader of the Tai Loi community for continuous playing until 1pm the following day. At that point it is removed from its stand and carried in a procession along the Loimwe-Mong Yang Road to Long Kope, where each year the clay frog sculpture and sand stupa are created anew for the festival.

The Tai Loi musicians continue beating the drum along the way, while others in the procession carry colorful flags. Bystanders sprinkle scented water on the walkers for good luck as they make their way to the ceremonial grounds, where respects are paid to the frog and sand pagoda sculptures.

At the end of the festival, the drum is taken to Mahamuni Pagoda in Kengtung.

Once there, four monks from Wat Som Kham Monastery – located near a banyan tree believed to house the guardian spirit of Kengtung – sprinkle the instrument with scented water and recite an incantation, after which the drum is then sent to its storage place at Wat Kengzan Monastery until next year’s festival.

 

 

Ayeywarwaddy River cruise photo essay: Day 12

Traditional wood carvings at a workshop in Mandalay.

 

Our Ayeywarwaddy cruise ended with a short 11-kilometer boat ride from Mingun to Mandalay, followed by a half-day tour of the city that included handcraft shops, sculpting workshops and Mahamuni Pagoda. The pagoda was lively with activity, with many families participating in ceremonies to have their sons ordained as Buddhist monks.

 

Thandar Khine (she’s the one in the middle) poses with some rather large marionettes.

 

Women create an embroidered tapestry at a workshop in Mandalay. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

 

A sculptor works on a Buddha image.

 

A sculptor puts the finishing touches on a Buddha statue.

 

A young boy participates in an ordination procession at Mahamuni Pagoda in Mandalay.

 

A child is dressed up for an ordination ceremony at Mahamuni Pagoda.

 

Costumed children stand in line as they take part in an ordination procession. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

Ayeywarwaddy River cruise photo essay: Day 11

Mingun Pagoda.

 

Our last overnight stop before our arrival in Mandalay was Mingun, home to a giant pagoda whose construction was started by King Bowdawpaya in 1790 but was never finished. Had it been completed, the planned 150-meter-high structure would have been the biggest pagoda in the world.

 

A raft carries ceramic pots downriver from Kyauk Myaung, which we had visited on day four.

 

The view from the RV Paukan 2007 pilot house.

 

The ruins of a giant guardian chinthe (mythical lion-like creatures) near Mingun Pagoda.

 

Visitors walk up the stairs to the top of Mingun Pagoda. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

 

Looking south toward Mandalay from the top of Mingun Pagoda.

 

The view north from Mingun Pagoda, with Hsinbyume Myatheindan Pagoda in the foreground.

 

Hsinbyume Myatheindan Pagoda.

 

Hanging out at Hsinbyume Myatheindan Pagoda.

 

Buddhist nuns ride in a bullock cart near Mingun Pagoda.

 

Traditional Burmese dancers perform on the beach along the river near Mingun Pagoda.

Ayeywarwaddy River cruise photo essay: Day 10

 

Elephant bathing time.

 

The main event of the day was a stop at an elephant camp near Katha, where the animals worked hauling logs out of the forest to be loaded onto boats and taken downriver.

 

The grizzled road to the elephant camp.

 

Elephant master (ozi).

 

A young ozi.

 

An elephant and his ozi. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

 

Scrubbing the pachyderms.

 

A row of elephant butts. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

 

The elephants return to the forest from whence they came. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

Ayeywarwaddy River cruise photo essay: Day 9

Children play on a swing on Kyun Taw Island.

 

On day nine we started the anticlimactic return trip to Mandalay, traveling much faster now that we were going with the flow of the river. We passed back through the second defile and just before midday stopped at the mid-river Kyun Taw Island, home to a small village and an atmospheric pagoda.

 

A traditional house on Kyun Taw Island. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

Kyun Taw Pagoda.

 

Kyun Taw Pagoda. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

 

Ceiling details inside a monastery near Kyun Taw Pagoda. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

 

Passing rain showers in the afternoon brought rainbows to the Ayeyarwaddy River. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ayeywarwaddy River cruise photo essay: Day 8

Motoring through the second defile of the Ayeywarwaddy River. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

 

We started the day with a quick excursion into the town of Shwegu before sailing through the middle (second) defile of the Ayeyarwaddy River. This one is the most spectacular of the three, with jungle-covered cliffs soaring above the waterway on either side: Isolated pagodas cling to the steep rock walls, waterfalls cascade from the heights, monkeys chatter in the trees. Beyond this lay the town of Bhamo in Kachin State, the northernmost point of our trip, which we reached in the late afternoon.

 

We’ve all heard of the Cat in the Hat. His cousin, the Cat on the Hat, lives in Shwegu.

 

Another bamboo raft, with the wood sellers living aboard in temporary huts, floats from Bhamo to Bagan. With the river flowing at 2mph, and with safe travel possible only during daylight hours, the trip takes about 12 days.

 

The southernmost reaches of the Ayeyarwaddy’s second defile. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

 

A high, mossy waterfall in the second defile.

 

A kid with a toy gun pulls his brother across a road in Bhamo.

 

Yunnan Chinese Temple in Bhamo.

 

Spices for sale at Bhamo’s riverside market.

 

Fried snacks at the Bhamo market.

 

The end of another day in Bhamo.

Ayeywarwaddy River cruise photo essay: Day 7

Morning glow on the landscape of upper Myanmar.

The town of Katha is famous among readers of English literature as the setting for George Orwell’s novel Burmese Days (fictionalized in the book as the town of Kyauktada). Orwell himself, under his non-nom de plume Eric Blair, actually lived in Katha in 1926-1927 as part of the Indian Imperial Police force, and the British Club where he hung out (and which was featured in Burmese Days) can still be visited today.

I had visited Katha in 2004, along with a friend who was conducting research for a book on Orwell, and I had already seen the British Club during that trip. So on this trip, while the rest of our boat’s passengers went to see the sights, Thandar Khine and I took off on an excursion of a different sort: to track down her grandmother who lived on the outskirts of Katha and whom she had not seen since she was a small child. The story is told in the photos below.

 

Black skies and sunlight along the way to Katha.

 

The Katha riverfront.

 

When Thandar Khine and I disembarked from the boat, we headed for the nearest corner store to figure out where her grandmother’s house was located and how best to get there. The people in the shop (the two people on the right) were super-helpful.

 

The shop owners even volunteered to drive us to the grandmother’s house on their motor scooters and refused to take petrol money when we offered.

 

We got dropped off in a picturesque ethnic Kachin village on the outskirts of town.

 

Another local women we didn’t know came along and offered to walk us to the correct house, leading us over small wooden bridges …

 

… down shady lanes …

 

… and straight to the home of Thandar Khine’s grandmother, Daw Ja Lone Nang Htoo, for the long-overdue family reunion.

 

 

Ayeyarwaddy River cruise photo essay: Day 6

A boat carries pottery and passengers upriver.

We woke to another spectacular morning, during which we stopped at Tagaung. This town plays a key role in Myanmar folklore, with chronicles mentioning it as the first capital of Myanmar and therefore the place in which all subsequent kingdoms are rooted. This is reflected in the adage “Myanmar asa Tagaung ga” (Myanmar starts from Tagaung).

Not surprisingly, one of the main sights in town is the shrine of a powerful nat (spirit) named Tagaung Bo Bo Gyi, who is represented by a huge golden head surrounded by offerings of coconuts, bananas, flowers, soft drinks. A woman at the shrine told us that since Tagaung was the place “where Myanmar started,” Tagaung Bo Bo Gyi controlled the entire country.

 

Morning mist enshrouds the mountains.

 

A large banyan tree and a small Buddhist pagoda stand at the entrance to Tagaung.

 

A woman sweeps leaves under the banyan tree.

 

Tagaung Bo Bo Gyi, represented by a big golden head, is considered by worshippers to be the most powerful spirit in Myanmar.

 

Leaves and flowers are cut to make offerings at the shrine of Tagaung Bo Bo Gyi.

 

One of the few remnants of a city wall dating back to the pre-Bagan Pyu era (1st to 9th centuries).

 

This kid in Tagaung is the proud owner of what is unquestionably the coolest haircut in the history of the universe. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

 

Thanakha overkill. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

 

A ferryboat carries passengers above and below.

 

Tigyaing village. (Photo: Thandar Khine)

 

Magic hour on the river.

 

The confluence of the Ayeyarwaddy and Shweli rivers.