Active Myanmar

After breakfast, head to Yangon train station with your guide for a local’s view of the capital on the circle line. You’ll get down after a few stops and return by car to the centre for a short walking tour of the colonial quarter, starting at the Botataung Paya. After lunch, explore Bogyoke Aung San market and visit the National Museum, where the prize exhibit is King Mindon’s awe-inspiring ‘Lion Throne’, before winding up at the Shwedagon pagoda, which is bathed in ethereal light around sunset time.

The city of Bago, just over a couple of hours’ drive northeast of downtown Yangon, boasts one of the largest concentrations of historic monuments in the country, thanks to its role in the 15th and 16th centuries as the region’s capital. All impeccably restored, these range from giant reclining Buddhas to gilded pagodas and monasteries. In the afternoon, you’ll continue on to Mawlamyine, rounding off the day with a wander through the old British quarter and visit to the huge pagodas in the hill overlooking the city.

Dominated by a huge covered market, Mawlamyine’s bazaar district is one of the most interesting in the country – the perfect place to sample the town’s old-fashioned Burmese feel. If you wish, you can continue the tour by bicycle, pedalling out to surrounding farming villages before returning to the foot of Thanlyin Bridge to catch the ferry to Gaung Say Kyn, aka ‘Shampoo Island’. The name of this pagoda-encrusted islet in the Gyaing River is derived from the fact the local Mon king traditionally bathed his hair in water from a spring on it in a special ceremony each year. The trip across is a serene experience.

Separated from the mainland by the Thanlyin River, Bilu Kyun Island exists in its own charismatic time-warp. Only one, mostly unsurfaced road crosses it, winding for 33km from north to south. There are hardly any trucks or cars, and most people get around on foot, by bicycle or bullock cart, earning a living from small-scale farming and cottage industries: rubber bands, bamboo topee hats and little blackboards for school children are the main products; you’ll have the chance to see all three being made, and to take tea in a local tea shop.

Hpa-an on the Thanlwin (Salween) River serves as a congenial base for trips around the breathtakingly beautiful limestone Zwegabin massif to its southeast. Rising in spectacular fashion from the surrounding rice paddy, the foot of the jungle-draped mountain is honeycombed with hidden cave temples, pagodas and other sacred sites, among them the Kyauk Kalap, or ‘Water Lake Monastery’, whose stupa crowns the top of a slender pillar of rock. You’ll be accompanied by your guide around this fascinating, highly photogenic area, returning to town around sunset time.

The vision of Kyaiktiyo’s gilded boulder glowing molten yellow in the dying rays of daylight is simply one of the most ravishing Myanmar – or indeed the whole of Southeast Asia – has to offer. The reward for an extremely bumpy journey to the mountaintop is the chance to experience the site’s otherworldly atmosphere – the hundreds of candles, the clouds of incense smoke, ringing of bells and, above all, wondrous vision of the rock itself, miraculously balanced on the rim of the valley. You’ll be staying in a hotel only a stone’s throw from the temple.

Dawn, when all the pilgrims who have spent the night sleeping on the marble terrace around the pagoda converge on the Golden Rock to offer prayers, is a wonderful time to be on the mountaintop. As your hotel is close by, you’ll be perfectly placed for an early start. As the sun climbs higher into the blissful blue Burmese sky you’ll make your way back to sea level and drive onwards to Yangon for a one-night stay.

Salay village, on the Ayeyarwady River to the south of Bagan, saw an influx of British oil workers in the late 19th century. To accommodate them, their employers erected an ensemble of grand colonial-style houses, which are now rather forlorn and faded, but wonderfully photogenic. The town also retains a superb carved wooden monastery holding a collection of fascinating antiquities, and the shrine of an enormous gold-lacquer Buddha. Passing through a string of small farming villages, the journey to and from Bagan offers memorable glimpses of rural life along the banks of Myanmar’s mightiest river.

Over 2,000 brick, gold and stucco stupas and temples are scattered across this wondrous archaeological site – the remains of a once glittering city that thrived on the banks of the Ayeyarwady River between the 11th and 13th centuries. Many are exquisitely decorated inside and out, holding huge Buddha images and vibrant medieval murals. Horse carts provide a leisurely way to explore the sandy lanes linking the sites, but more energetic travellers may be tempted to cover some stretches by bicycle.

Today’s drive is a long one, but you’ll arrive in Bagan in time for a sundowner on the banks of the Ayeyarwady, when you can savour your achievement of having explored one of the most remote corners of Asia.

Magical Inle Lake lies amid the outlying hills of the Shan Plateau. The Intha people who live in stilt villages around its fringes have evolved a unique way of life based on fishing and vegetable gardens that literally float on the surface of the lake. You can skim past them on long-tailed boats, pausing at ancient stupa sites, monasteries, temples, weaving workshops (where silk is spun from lotus stems) and fresh produce markets to which Pa-O and other minority people travel from the surrounding mountains – all wonderful photo opportunities.

Beginning with a transfer by long-tail boat, today’s hike takes you up a well-trodden path from the lakeshore to Kyar Tun village, where most of the Pa-o people wear traditional navy tunics and red or orange plaid head scarves. The views improve as you ascend further to the monastery at Nat U Daung, a handsomely carved teak building and popular picnic spot visited by large numbers of Pa-o on weekends. You’ll enjoy a picnic lunch at a suitably inspirational spot overlooking Inle and its surrounding mountains. After descending to the lake shore again you’ll rejoin your boat for the trip back to your hotel, arriving before sunset.

So-called ‘floating markets’ are held in rotation by different villages on the shores of Inle Lake, and apart from being a rich source of souvenirs provide a great opportunity to meet local minority people such as the Pa-O, who descend from the surrounding hills to sell fresh produce and stock up on supplies, many of them dressed in traditional costume. Tours on the water typically involve stops at stilted Intha villages to see cheroot factories, goldsmiths workshops, floating gardens, and the Phaung Daw U Pagoda – Inle’s most revered temple.