Page 8 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

6 INTRODUCTION
traditional culture and beliefs, from the long-necked
FACT FILE ladies of the Kayan (Padaung) tribe to the warlike Wa,
• Myanmar has a population whose fierce reputation endures to this day.
of around 55 million. Yangon For the visitor, it’s these images of old Burma – the
is the largest city (5 million),
followed by Mandalay (1.3 spectacular temples of Bagan; the great golden stupa of
million) and the national Yangon’s Shwedagon Pagoda at sunset; traditional
capital Naypyitaw (1 million). leg-rowed boats drifting across Inle Lake – that provide
• At 676,000 square the touchstone of the Burmese experience. The winds of
kilometres, Myanmar is change, however, are blowing steadily through the
slightly smaller than Turkey, country following the recent stunningly swift and
and slightly larger than
France. remarkably peaceful transition to democracy, followed
by the election in 2015 of a new NLD government led
• Buddhism is the main by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The new NLD
religion (around 88 percent
of the population), though administration may have so far disappointed, amid
there are also sizeable rising levels of ethnic and religious tension, heightened
populations of Christians, press censorship and a range of other muddles and
Muslims and Hindus.
abuses, although the fact that the country has a
• The country was formerly democratic government at all stands as a monument to
named Burma after its the many thousands of unheralded Burmese who
majority ethnic group – the
Bamar, who are thought to sacrificed their liberty, and often their lives, in the battle
represent around 68 percent for freedom during the five decades of military rule.
of the population. Other Given the tragic recent past, what is perhaps likely to
major groups include the
Shan (9 percent), Kayin (7 linger most in the memory is the sheer warmth of the
percent), Rakhine (4 percent) Burmese people, starved of contact with the outside
and Mon (2 percent).
world for so many years, and who remain among the
• Three major linguistic friendliest and most welcoming in Asia. Visit now,
families are represented in before it all changes.
Myanmar: Sino-Tibetan
(which includes Burmese),
Tai-Kadai (which includes the
Shan languages) and Where to go
Austro-Asiatic tongues such
as those of the Mon, Palaung One of Southeast Asia’s great cities, Yangon (Rangoon)
and Wa tribes.
is far and away Myanmar’s largest metropolis and
• George Orwell lived in commercial heart. The glorious Shwedagon Pagoda is
Burma from 1922 until Myanmar’s – perhaps the world’s – most extraordinary
returning to England after Buddhist temple, while the downtown area is a
catching dengue fever in
1927; his Burmese Days (see magnificent showpiece of colonial architecture, with
p.393) remains one of the streets full of memorably decaying colonial-era
most-read books about the buildings, hectic markets, miniature pavement cafés
country. Rudyard Kipling
also stopped by in 1889, after and a fascinatingly diverse range of multicultural
which he wrote his famous attractions ranging from Hindu and Chinese temples
poem “Mandalay” – without through to the country’s only synagogue.
ever actually visiting the city
itself. To the south and west of Yangon, the fertile Delta
region is largely ignored by foreign travellers, with

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