The Moustache Brothers – U Par Par Lay
14 August 2013 | Culture
U Par Par Lay died earlier this month in Myanmar. He was one of the three Moustache Brothers, he and U Lu Maw were indeed brothers, U Lu Zaw was a cousin. The threesome were Burma’s most famous comedians in the time-honoured a-nyeint pwe, a traditional vaudeville comb...
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Aung San Suu Kyi Released
15 November 2010 | Living
Aung San Suu Kyi is out. She’s spent 15 of the past 21 years in some form of detention, the last spell stretching back to 2003. Just over a year ago her most recent period of house arrest was extended by another 18 months because a crazy tourist had decided to swim ac...
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Flying to Australia 5
2 November 2010 | Places
The last leg of our multi-stop London to Australia flight didn’t start or end the way it was planned. In F-to-A 1 I wrote about the history of flying to Australia. F-to-A 2 went from London via Jersey, the south of France and Malta to the Greek island of Crete. F-to-A...
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Road to Mandalay
29 March 2010 | Transport
▲ Road to Mandalay
My recent Burma travels took me from Bagan to Mandalay, with assorted stops along the way, on the Road to Mandalay. The riverboat started life on the Rhine in Europe before being shifted to Burma by the Orient Express company in 1995.
▲ B...
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Mandalay Photo Album
28 March 2010 | Places
My Burma trip included a return visit to Mandalay, my first visit was 36 years ago in 1974! Despite many changes over the years – Mandalay is regularly cited as the city where Chinese economic influence is most evident – it’s still an extraordinarily Buddhist city and...
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