Wild Burma

Tonight's first in the series on BBC2 at 9pm looks worthy of a looksee. Still a very secret country that would be fascinating to visit I think,
Jenny

 

Hi Jen

going to record , its a must see

Spruce

 

I shall certainly be watching as my father was born in Maymyo (now Pyin Oo Lwin), Burma.

 

Wow. When did he leave Burma and has he been back since?

 

I spent a week in Burma (max allowed for a tourist) in the 70's. We wanted to get up north to Mandalay, and then to Pagan to see the temples but the only way to do that in a week was to catch the train North to Mandalay and then fly to Pagan, and then fly from there back to Rangoon. Prices of flights were horrific (they needed the hard currency) but the whole week was paid for, everything including flights, I kid you not, by selling a bottle of Chivas Regal and 200 x "555" cigarettes on the black market; I also got some moon stones and a few other semi precious stones

The temples in Pagan were amazing - hundreds of them dotted about in a completely arid, almost desert, area with next to zero population. No idea what they were doing there ... A buddha lying down in a template that was only a couple of feet bigger than the sculpture (which was massive) so that you could barely get in there alongside it ... and a photo was impossible. I wonder what the thinking was behind building that in such a way that it was neigh on impossible to enjoy and admire. Ho!Hum!

Chatted to my Father when I got back and he said when he had been stationed there with the RAF during the war he had nicked a piece of gold leaf off the Shwedagon pagoda!

But I was back-packing in those days ... I prefer some creature comforts now, so not sure how much I would enjoy it these days. I don't think its changed much, as yet, and when I was there the cars were 50 years old THEN - no glass left in any of the windows, unreliable, etc etc. - as there had been no contact with the outside world to allow imports of such things.

 

Hi Jenny, he was born there in 1918 and left when he was in his early teens to go to a private school in Norwich. His grandparents were doctors there so had a rather privileged upbringing. He died in July 2006 in Texas and I don't believe he ever went back during his lifetime.

 

A decent programme but it did feature just Elephants, two more and hopefully some different wildlife.
China is and has been propping up Burma for decades in exchange for all the resources it can extract which now will escalate more and more and this pristine forest will shrink rapidly and the the wildlife will disappear with it.