Inle Lake, Shan State, Myanmar
Mingalaba from Myanmar (pronounced like slurring together “me an’ ma”). Some enterprising folks have figured out how to get around the government controls on access to the internet. So it’s available (but pricey) in the larger towns. We had thought that the name “Myanmar” was introduced recently by the government. But, in fact, it dates back to the time of Marco Polo at least. The name “Burma” is a bastardization of the word “Bamar” (the largest ethnic group here) by the British colonizers.
We’ve spent our time visiting many of the temples at Bagan, hiking and sipping Burmese milk tea in the cool Shan state highlands, and smoking lots of opium (just kidding). They’ve let us past all of the military checkpoints so far, and assuming the border at Tachileik is open when we get there, we’ll walk back into Thailand on the 28th. Better post this before the power goes out.