Photo Courtesy of www.clippertrading.com
Burmese lacquerware is the real, organic, deal. The resin comes from the Thit-si tree, drip-drained like rubber, by cutting notches in the trunk. Lacquer is refined from that sap, and lacquerware is flexible and resistant to water and insects. It is painted on to a base either of horsehair or split bamboo, [...]

Photos by Amber Rowlands
Should you go? My decision to go to the nation the ruling junta renamed Myanmar was perhaps easier than yours will be; I was assigned a story there and thus had the privilege to visit one of the world’s most complex and compelling nations.
Here’s some of what you need to know; [...]

Photo by Amber Rowlands
You would not expect a chic concept store in old Rangoon, now called Yangon. Yet Loft is that. Up a rickety staircase above a first floor restaurant called Monsoon, and thus two flights up from the street level cafe of that same name, Loft has a beautifully curated selection of treasures, from [...]

Photo by Amber Rowlands
Rudyard Kipling wrote of it thus in Letters from the East; “A golden mystery upheaved itself on the horizon - a beautiful winking wonder that blazed in the sun, of a shape that was neither Muslim dome nor Hindu temple spire…. ‘There’s the old Shway Dagon,’ said my companion. The golden dome [...]

Should you go to Burma? For the reasons not to, packed in a wry little film starring Jason Schwartzman and Famke Janssen, see this clip.
As you struggle to make up your mind, read Rory Maclean’s Under the Dragon and Benedict Roger’s Than Shwe, Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant. For a light, but surprisingly clever read, try [...]