Emerging From The Shadows

A country which was long closed to visitors and consistently ranked among the world’s worst for the twin scourges of corruption and human rights violations, Myanmar has taken positive steps in recent years. We take a closer look at this fascinating land – one of ASEAN’s most engaging travel destinations – that is seeing encouraging changes thanks to its rich heritage and consequent tourism appeal.

- Chad Merchant

Roughly the size of Texas, Myanmar is the largest mainland country in the ASEAN union, which it joined in 1997, though the aggregate land mass of Indonesia’s many islands claim the top spot overall. And since it covers areas from around 10°N by Thailand on the Andaman Sea all the way to around 28°N in the Himalayas (indeed the highest point in Southeast Asia is in extreme northern Myanmar, the 19,295-foot Hkakabo Raza), the country is quite ecologically and geographically diverse, and limited development over the years has allowed much of the country to remain relatively undisturbed by humanity, something of an anomaly in the 21st century.

A BRIEF HISTORY

 The history of this South-east Asian country is a complex and fascinating one, dating back beyond antiquity, with recorded evidence of modern humans living there as far back as 11,000 BCE. By the advent of the Bronze Age, around 1500 BCE, people in the area were cultivating rice, alloying copper to make bronze, and domesticating poultry and pigs – notably among the first humans in the world to do so.

Between 200 BCE and 100 BCE, the first city-states began to emerge in what is now central Myanmar. Hundreds of years later, by 800 CE, a number of city-states had taken shape across the land. In 849, a settlement was founded at Pagan – today called Bagan – by the Mranma people of Nanzhao. Over the next century and a half, Pagan grew in both grandeur and authority, reigning over competing city-states in the area, and it was during the two successive centuries that thousands of temples, monasteries, and pagodas would be constructed across the plains of the kingdom, many of which still stand today and comprise one of Myanmar’s most compelling tourist attractions.