Myanmar: Travel Guide

The stolen smile of Burma

Myanmar, still called by many by its old name Burma, is one of those places that, once crossed, stays inside you and never lets you go. Anyone who sets foot there often leaves with the feeling of having touched something rare.

The first time I arrived, I didn’t really know what to expect. I hadn’t studied the country much before leaving, and to be honest, I always prefer it that way. Too much preparation risks turning the trip into a checklist. I prefer to leave room for the concrete reality rather than expectations. After so many years traveling around Asia, I stopped feeling like a mere tourist.

Those were different years than today. There wasn’t a real ATM network in the country yet. You traveled with perfect dollars, without creases, without marks, because a tiny flaw was enough to have them rejected by the money changers. ATMs appeared only later, initially almost exclusively in airports and a few cities. Getting around the Myanmar of that time had something more uncertain, more difficult, and perhaps precisely for this reason, more authentic.

What struck me immediately were the smiles. Not the circumstantial ones you meet in many tourist places, but full, bright, almost disarming smiles. Probably the purest I have ever seen in my travels.

Encounters along the way

In Bagan, I remember a young girl wandering among the temples selling small souvenirs to visitors. Those gadgets that travelers normally buy without thinking too much about it. She, instead, stopped to talk. Curious, direct, with that energy typical of children who grow up on the street, among travelers, and quickly learn to read the world. I don’t even remember exactly what she was selling, but I remember her smile and her lively big eyes as she tried to tell me something about her life among the pagodas and the dust of the plain.

Another time, a young monk invited me to visit the monastery where he lived. He wasn’t organizing a tour; he was simply curious to practice a little English. We walked through silent teak corridors, bamboo mats, and small spartan rooms where the monks spent their days studying and meditating. He spoke softly, with a natural kindness, while outside the sun fell on the golden roofs of the pagodas.

Then there are the images that remain imprinted almost without reason. A father holding his little girl tight, enthusiastically agreeing to have their picture taken. She laughs, he strikes a pose with a smile full of pride, with that simple and powerful expression of someone looking at his daughter as if she were the most beautiful thing ever created in the world.

And everywhere, on people’s faces, that yellowish thanaka powder spread on their cheeks and foreheads. An ancient tradition, used as protection from the sun, which has now become one of the most recognizable symbols of the country. On the smiling faces of children and women, it takes on almost decorative shapes: circles, leaves, stripes painted with a natural elegance.

Long, endless journeys

Traveling in Myanmar also means accepting a certain amount of fatigue. I remember a long train journey from Yangon to the south of the country. Endless hours in a carriage that felt more like an amusement park ride than a means of transport.

The train constantly jolted on the tracks, bouncing so much that sometimes you almost ended up lifted off your seat. After a few hours, your back would seriously start to protest. Yet no one seemed to pay much attention to it. Vendors would board at the stops with bags of food, children would peer curiously out the windows, and the Burmese countryside rolled slowly by outside the carriage. It wasn’t a comfortable trip, but it was one of those moments when you truly realize where you are.

Or the boat from Mandalay to Bagan. It took many hours, I don’t remember exactly how many anymore, but it was one of the journeys I still carry inside me with great clarity. The boat moved slowly along the river, stopping at almost every village. People got on and off carrying goods, food, small everyday objects, blending with extreme naturalness into the life of the boat. I watched the houses along the banks, the life flowing beside the water, and that profound sense of serenity that seemed to inhabit the souls of the people in these places.

A country that deserves better

Myanmar is one of the countries I would like to return to most often. Unfortunately, the political situation in recent years has made everything much more complicated. The country I had known was slowly opening up to the world, with a mutual curiosity between visitors and the local population that made the trip even more intense.

Today that opening has been interrupted.

This country deserves much more than the difficult history it is going through. Its culture is deep, its people incredibly dignified, and anyone who has had the good fortune to travel through it knows that behind those golden pagodas and dusty roads exists a world that continues to resist.

I truly hope that one day it will be possible to peacefully walk those roads again, hop on those rickety trains, stop in the villages along the way, and continue to encounter those smiles that, even today, remain among the most memorable I have ever come across while traveling.