And the Beauty Begins....

Tempow.

Kids near tempow.

 This is how they announce your flight is boarding in Myanmar.. a guy wanders around a "waiting room" with the flight information on a board yelling "BAGAN" or "MANDALAY!"

and then ofcourse the airport is one with very little traffic... expansive though!  I feel like Myanmar will be able to handle expansion as their tourism industry flourishes.

 This is the main (touristic) method of transportation... Horsedrawn carriages... despite a healthy supply of them, they held strong to their colluded prices, and it was surprisingly difficult to negotiate with them!

I just want to show you that these temples that you see are not the same one taken from different angles, but separate ones, and there were TONS of them. as evidence by the horizon photos later on, the landscape of Old Bagan (an area that the government kicked everyone out of to preserve the temples and stupas) is LITTERED with these brick and golden temples/stupas.. absolutely breathtaking.

 

Ofcourse, the sunset and sunrise were the daily events for us to take a look at from various temples and vantage points. All were breathtaking, and I would almost say life changing.. just to know a place like this exists is bone chilling!

 

 My family atop one of the worn yet massive and still standing stupas.

Every morning they have hot air balloon rides for exorbitant rates that the 65-75 year old retired yet extremely wealthy "adventure (via a tour) tourist" take part in.. for the rest of us, it just adds to the beautiful experience.

 

The sunrise...
 

...and the BEST people to spend it with.

Moving along from photos of only people, on to what Burma ACTUALLY looks like....

Dad with the thing that preoccupies his mind most: taxis

As we walked along the path of the lake, these young girls wanted a photo with my stylish mom!

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Over on the right of this lake is where Aung San Suu Kyi lived under house arrest. She is leader of the opposition party, which for the first time in a long time will be allowed to run in the upcoming election! (and actually have the result count)

Mom started singing and playing guitar with this local (i'm not even sure if I could call them this) punk group.. very amusing seeing as although they were dressed all in black in the middle of 30 degree weather, they began to sing the Beatles with my mom!

Lets just skip Singapore and just go to Myanmar

 Mom evidently missed our dog, and so picked up a rabbit as a surrogate for a few minutes

 At every temple, ladies would be selling little sparrows (perhaps the same ones that I saw in Malaysia and Sinapore) that they had caught, and (for good fortune or karma) you could set them free for a dollar or so!

 TEMPLE! The city of Yangon (formerly Rangoon) is centred around this giant gold temple, ie. its bang in the centre, and everything extends from it... pretty cool urban planning if you ask me..

If you notice on the women's cheeks they have what looks like badly smeared different color coverup!.. this is actually a natural wood based (i think) paste that they put on as a sunscreen as well as cooling agent for their faces called "tanaka"

 

Old man, he looks over 60 (probably younger) but still working, and manual labor at that!.. notice the lower body apparel.. called a longy, it is a male's version of a skirt, yet longer and all men where it... locals, unless they're dealing with international business will wear these longies. Mom bought me one, and I can see why they were them in such heat... it keeps everything quite cool! 

 At one of the bigger markets in Yangon, they had an area completely dedicated to almost 50-60 stalls in which girls like this stitched and made clothes!

Below is a man making billboard signs... BY HAND!.. an area of town had about 20 stores in which men would just be drawing and cutting out Burmese letters for signs that would eventually find themselves up on a billboard or storefront!

Not exactly sure what this guy was selling.. 

it almost seemed like he was a hoarder of random parts...

I decided to camp out at a certain spot on the sidewalk and take (what i thought was) discrete photos of locals walking down the street... by the amount of eye contact, i think they knew i was photoing them.. and not just flag or shop behind them...