Thursday, March 19

Lashio in northeast Myanmar

 

It's been fine and sunny for the past few days but before that it was wet and windy – the sort of weather that makes you look ahead to future holidays and look back over past ones.
Here's a video from Myanmar taken in 2012. It is of Lashio in Shan State, in the north east of the country, a hundred or so kilometres from the Chinese border along the famous Burma Road. It's sbeen in the news recently because of clashes between the Myanmar army, the Tatmadaw, and local Kokang tribes (ethnic Han Chinese living in Burma in an area along the border with Burma). Many refugees from the fighting have gone to Lashio. The town also had clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in 2013. However when I was there it was a bustling city of about 130,000.
Things change, and not always for the better.