1. ISBN13: 9781741047189
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Editorial Review :

Whether you're looking to temple-hop in Bagan, trek through rice paddies in Hsipaw, explore Inle Lake by canoe or relax on Ngapali Beach, this book will help you uncover Myanmar's most memorable experiences. We've found you the best ways to travel independently, supporting small-scale entrepreneurs and family-run businesses.

Lonely Planet guides are written by experts who get to the heart of every destination they visit. This fully updated edition is packed with accurate, practical and honest advice, designed to give you the information you need to make the most of your trip.

In This Guide:

Unique color chapters on Shwedagon Paya
Locals give an insiders' perspective on life in Myanmar
Expanded coverage of the north and east

Customer Review :

Slightly less than "like new"

I believe this book was titled "like new," but there was writing on a number of pages and the edges were dirty. However, it served its purpose and arrived pretty quickly!

Rating :

Beautiful Myanmar

I think Myanmar is a beautiful country. The Lonely Planet series is great. However, by going to Myanmar you are supporting an oppressive government that kills innocent people for purely sadistic reasons. I hope you will not visit the country nor buy this book until a democratic regime is installed there.

Rating :

Travel book

This is about the best book available on Myanmar that I know of. I used it extensively.

Problems include the hotels in Yangon that are listed. There are several that are very nice and about $30. US that are not listed.

There's a brand new airport in Yangon and new capitol city. Both are missing as far as I can tell.

Like all travel books, it's outdated when it comes off the press. It is quite good overall however.

Rating :

A MUST READ BEFORE YOU LEAVE FOR MYANMAR

An excellent book and take the advice. Myanmar is a cash-only society. You cannot use credit cards anywhere and there are not any ATM's anywhere in the country. Also, your currency must be new and without folds or marks.
The book's advice on Yangon was wonderful!

Rating :

Best Guide for Visiting Burma/Myanmar

There is no other guide which comes close to being as useful for visiting Burma, either as a first-time tourist or an veteran traveller. Its overall descriptions, information on transport, reviews of hotels etc are all generally reliable and up-to-date. The accounts of restarants in Rangoon however is probably somewhat dated, as the restaurant scene in Rangoon changes quickly and there are many new restaurants today (more than a year and half since publication) which are not mentioned.

I would recommend reading The River of Lost Footsteps by Thant Myint-U for an excellent and entertaining history of the country, either before going or during your trip. The LP Myanmar and The River of Lost Footsteps are the only two books you'll need.

Rating :

More reviews...

1. ISBN13: 9781897299500
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Editorial Review :

Customer Review :

Merry Deslile Christmas

I received this for Christmas from a person with great taste so I suppressed my initial anxiousness about receiving a graphic novel for the holidays. I was thoroughly charmed by this book. The stories were a nice blend of personal expression and social commentary. Neither was heavy handed. I felt informed about the idiosyncrasies of Burma/Myanmar but also fascinated by the exploration of a different culture with an open mind and critical eye.

I have traveled a lot in the last 5 years so this may have made the book even more interesting for me, but I believe anyone with a sense of humor, curiosity, and a fondness for their fellow man would love this graphic novel.

Rating :

Great book; wonderful drawings

Once I started this book, I couldn't stop sneaking off to read it. It actually sucked me in and my whole world for 3 days was Burma, in black and white,

Not much else to say except that it is really like a blog with drawings and humor peppered here and there. Very easy to digest, and would be a great addition to any PoliSci course or literature course looking to go multi-modal or just change it up a bit.

I loved the fact that the hardcover does NOT have a (useless and gratuitous) dustjacket. The image that would be on the dustjacket is actually the hard cover.

Rating :

Welcome to Myanmar...

Burma Chronicles is the third book I have by Guy Delisle. I also read Pyongyang and Shenzhen, which were both interesting in their own way. Burma Chronicles is, I think, the overall best. He has learned how to deliver the humor, the sadness, the landscape of another place, another country, giving us the feel in both images and words. From him I learned about the Noble Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, about how the nation is run, about the water festival and many other things like malaria.
In fact the last few weeks Burma...excuse me, Myanmar, was in the news BECAUSE of that American who ended up staying with Aung San Suu Kyi. So I have gained knowledge that helped me understand the morning news. Amazing! A comic book helping me to learn. I hope he writes and draws more about the places he has been.


Rating :

Thoroughly enjoyed this very accessible but poignant book...

I really love Guy Delisle's work. I have now read all three of his travelogue's - China, North Korea and now Burma. He has a way of capturing the details of life on the road so to speak (the joy of his neighbors loving to see his son, the idiosyncrasies of shopping in a foreign country, the waiting game for electricity) that creates a story that draws you in so that you can hear and feel the other much less trivial stories (detainment of Aung San Suu Kyi, actions of a military junta, drug addiction and lack of health care). I always think I should go through these books faster than a regular book but it takes as much time or more because I want to take in the drawings and imagine the real scenes and catch all the details. I really liked some of the full page drawings with no text depicting different trips he took to tourist sites, villages and other countries during their stay in Burma...a picture is worth a 1000 words. I highly recommend his work and really loved Burma Chronicles in particular!

Rating :

Touching and hilarious.

If you have spent any time in Burma, this book will resonate on so many levels.

Rating :

More reviews...

1. ISBN13: 9781934159064
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
4. Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Editorial Review :

Beyond politics, little is known about Myanmar (Burma). Highlighting the country's great beauty and hospitality, this book is dedicated to the local residents whose warmth and encouragement are its inspiration.From helping a community library in New Bagan to breakfast with 2,700 monks in Mandalay, adventurers and armchair voyagers will discover the secrets of savvy expatriates, seasoned travelers, and inspired locals. With its unique insights into dining, shopping, sightseeing, and culture, To Myanmar With Love is a one-of-a-kind guide for the passionate traveler.

Customer Review :

open your eyes

One person commented that they didn't discover anything new about "Burma" after reading this book. How is that possible? Did they really read the entire book? This travel guide is overflowing with information and new perspectives of looking at --- and enjoying your trip to --- Myanmar. It's such a shame that Myanmar (get over calling it "Burma" everybody; that's a name that the Colonialist British bestowed upon the country, and is no longer what most of the locals call their country) continues to be subject to sanctions and travel boycotts. Those who have visited Myanmar, including the contributors to this book, will tell you that the experience was profound. Looking beyond the politics, this is a country that is incredible. These are a people that are worthy of your time, worthy of visiting, and worthy of befriending. And I think that message resonates loud and clear in most of these essays. These stories are ostensibly about travel, but they transcend that; they are about life and generosity and kindness. And yes, believe or not travellers can find those things in Myanmar. This book is a real eye opener, and FULL of NEW insight and tips on where to discover new places and experiences. Highly recommended!

Rating :

An enchanting good read about the land that time forgot

A delightful and enjoyable experience. This is not an ordinary tour guide, although there are plenty of specific and detailed references to places and activities. Its editor invites you to imagine an invitation to a party of talented, diverse, and accomplished people who regale you with tales and divulge secret hideaways--who all happily compete in offering favorite views and all unite in a love for the people of Myanmar.

I will embellish this image with the feeling of a genial inclusion into a company of admirable people--opening a window into a place of no small enchantment.

The photos are art quality and the commentary covers a good range of subject. I found the section dealing with how to help the local people particularly thoughtful, and there are reading and language references as well. Very well done.

Rating :

A refreshing look at a much-maligned country

Some books are necessary. "To Myanmar With Love" is one of those books. It reveals a side of Myanmar that is not only not written about in newspapers and magazines, but a side that is pointedly ignored.

Myanmar is a place with a rich culture, and a population eager to share that culture with the outside world. As this book shows, there is more to the country than just politics. While this is technically a guidebook, it is also a storybook, filled with tales by travelers, locals and foreigners who have made their homes in Myanmar. Many of the stories are lessons in reading between the lines. For example, when Aye Aye Maw writes about teashop culture in Yangon, she is also writing about what it was like to grow up as a girl in Myanmar in the early 1990s. The book also does an admirable job of introducing readers to individuals, from artists, monks and young guides to an Indian watchmaker in Yangon. Most important is the chapter in which writers share ways for travelers to assist the country when visiting.

I confess that I am the series editor for the To Asia With Love guidebooks, but my feelings about "To Myanmar With Love" are based on my experiences as a traveler, a reader, and a former bookseller. The book was not created to meet any kind of corporate editorial need. It was created because the editor has such a great passion for the people of Myanmar, because the people of Myanmar asked for it, and because the world needs to know more than one side of a story that has been presented with bias for too long.

Rating :

Raising the Curtain, Lighting a Lamp

When the editor of To Myanmar With Love began to collect the essays that make up this new guidebook,one Myanmar citizen told him, "Show people that my country is not some sort of hell."

This book does does this so well and so vividly that readers will race through it, vicariously savoring noodles with Yangon gourmet Ma Thanegi, having a traditional teashop breakfast with Win Thuya in Bagan, and carbo-loading with Giles Orr before tackling the sightseeing glories of the Shwedagon Pagoda. With Robert Carmack they will explore the colonial glories of the Strand Hotel in Yangon, learn the pleasures of being derailed in Bago with Peter Walter and a friendly railway clerk, and watch the launching of fire balloons that are three stories high with Anne Marie Power in the Shan State town of Taunggyi.

Breakfast with 2,700 monks in the company of Morgan Edwardson,explore a forest where spirits reside with Hpone Thant, visit a market where not a single souvenir can be found with Guillaume Rebiere where "colors, fragrances, and sounds are all sewn together into a patchwork." Deep sea dive in the Myeik Archipelago with Graydon Hazenberg, find the elusive Ayeyarwady dolphins with Hpone Thant and learn how these extraordinary creatures help the local fishermen. Take a bicycle, a boat, a pony cart, a trishaw, or a slow, slow train. Learn the joys of chewing betel or the casual elegance of wearing a longyi or savor the sweetness of tamarind flakes dissolving on the tongue.

The two features that appear in every volume of the To Asia With Love series of guidebooks are particularly outstanding in this book.

Paying It Forward: Suggestions for giving back while you're on the road reminds readers that "a donation can include more than just money." Viola Woodward tells how travelers can help spruce up schools and monasteries with a coat of fresh paint by supplying the paint and the labor. Sudah Yehudah Kovesh Shaheb's chance encounter with beach vendors leads to a visit to their homes and a trip with them to Yangon. Jan Polatschek tells how to teach English at monasteries while passing through town. Kyaw Zay Latt explains how to help in orphanages, with a list of places to visit with addresses and Janice Neider offers a list of items to give children instead of money or candy.

Resources for the Road offers a variety of annotated reading lists, suggestions for language learning materials, a wonderful essay on the bookshops of Yangon by James Spencer, and a comprehensive list of informational websites. And throughout the entire book, Steve Goodman's photographs reveal the faces of the Myanmar people and the beauty that is found in their country.

To Myanmar With Love shows this isolated country with burnished affection and extraordinary care. Through the eyes of the contributors, we all have the privilege of seeing and savoring the pleasures of Myanmar.



Rating :

not great

I was expecting to discover new things about Burma but I didn't find the stories very interesting.

Rating :

1. ISBN13: 9780143037118
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
4. Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Editorial Review :

In one of the most intrepid travelogues in recent memory, Emma Larkin tells of the year she spent traveling through Burma, using as a compass the life and work of George Orwell, whom many of Burma’s underground teahouse intellectuals call simply "the Prophet." In stirring prose, she provides a powerful reckoning with one of the world’s least free countries. Finding George Orwell in Burma is a brave and revelatory reconnaissance of modern Burma, one of the world’s grimmest and most shuttered police states, where the term "Orwellian" aptly describes the life endured by the country’s people.

Customer Review :

More Burma than Orwell, but that's okay...

Minor issues, pro or con: on pp. 280-281, Larkin summarizes the endings of most of Orwell's novels. (So much for a spoiler alert.) And the cover is very nicely done. With the hardcover remaindered, it's probably the nicest book I've held in my hands in awhile.

The main problem with this piece should be quickly gotten out of the way, especially as many readers won't likely think of it as an issue. Emma Larkin is an American and reads Orwell like an American.

For Americans, Orwell was this chap who wrote the two best works of political fiction in the twentieth century, which just happened to be quite useful in fighting the Cold War. He wrote a couple of good essays to boot.

For the British, Orwell was one of the greatest prose stylists the English language ever produced, whose last two novels the American go ape about. Orwell seemingly wrote about everything -- class distinctions, childhood memories, food, writing, war, morality, death, poverty, schooling, colonialism, you name it -- and the British seem congenitally unable to write a couple hundred pages of prose without quoting him. This is obviously a richer view.

Emma Larkin, for her part, adds _Burmese days_ to the usual American duo of _Animal farm_ and _Nineteen eighty-four_, forming what the Burmese consider "an unintentional trilogy" that records their history since the 1920s. Focusing on these three works is admittedly logical, but there was much more to Orwell.

Indeed, the main thing that Larkin found in travels to Burma was that there wasn't that much to find about an obscure policeman from eighty years earlier. Her discoveries are tantalizing in places -- she flirts, for instance, with the possibility that Orwell might have had some Burmese blood in him -- but what she adds to our understanding of the writer is context. The biographers of Orwell realistically didn't know that much about Burma -- did any of them even visit the country? -- so Larkin paints a much more vivid picture of the land and Orwell's time in it: why being stationed in the delta might have turned him against the system, how he arrived in the middle of a crime wave that was frustrating British authorities, etc. Towards the end, as Larkin makes her way to Katha, it's hard not to have a Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew detective thrill when she finds buildings that may have been the real life setting for _Burmese days_. For this, this book is a `must read' for Orwell fans.

But ideally, the book will be read wider. Let's face it: for Americans, Burma as a country has gone down the memory hole (called Myanmar). It's like Burma is a country that existed in the past, like a fantasy country from a childhood book that we stopped believing in long before we got to seventh-grade geography. (After all, it's main river is called the Irriwaddy.) Vietnam is central to American history and immigrants very visible in certain regions of the country, there are Thai restaurants in probably every major city in the US, etc. But Burma doesn't exist on American mental maps. Little information comes out of the country and that's ignored because it doesn't fit into any larger story. (Search `Burma' on flickr. There's something odd about the results.)

The great strength of this book then is that it puts a human face, or rather, many human faces on this forgotten country in which the rulers acts as if _Nineteen Eighty-four_ is a `how to' manual. To incite our curiosity about their lives and anger about their fates -- that is no small feat. From bibliophiles to snotty police to tortured political prisoners to awkward locals afraid that a foreigner in their presence will draw unwanted attention to Anglo-Burmese who did not get out in time and are stuck fading into history, they're all very much alive and real as they're struggling to survive in a tragically totalitarian Alice in Wonderland. One scene in a hotel captures this:

I had stayed here a few times on previous visits, and remember the first time, when the front-desk manager asked me what time I would like my supper.
`Seven thirty?' I suggested.
`That, madam, is the correct answer.'
As I turned to walk away, he asked, `And what would madam like to eat?'
`Um... fish?'
`That, madam, is incorrect. There is chicken or there is beef.'

Rating :

Homage to Burma?...

Hardly. Orwell saved that for Catalonia. Emma Larkin has written a wonderful, realistic book on modern Burma, structuring it by tracing the path of George Orwell when he was a colonial officer there in the `20's. As she indicates in the prologue, many Burmese believe that he wrote not one novel, but rather a trilogy about the country: "Burmese Days," "Animal Farm" and "1984." The later two books may have unintentional described the conditions in Burma today. I have previously read "Burmese Days" and did not particularly like it for its relentless negative tone, which may reflect the sad, debilitating nature of the colonial ruler / subject relationship. I felt it was similar to Celine's "Journey to the End of the Night."

Larkin is a journalist, using this name as a pseudonym, speaks Burmese, and must be careful of her inquisitiveness and her sources as she travels around the country. She starts her journey, as did Orwell, in Mandalay. She also knows her Kipling, and reflects on the love-hate relationship Orwell had with a writer synonymous with the British Empire. She traveled to Maymyo, the old hill station that resembles "back Home" England, and stayed at the Candacraig Hotel. She describes the town for what it is, a distant mirror of the Empire. Her next stop on the Orwell trail is Myaungmya, in the Delta, a truly dreadful place to live, with humidity and mosquitoes ruling, but a place to make a living due to the fertility of the land. When Orwell was stationed there he was active in the fight against the increase in banditry. One of the Larkin's observations, citing one of the inhabitants, is that Orwell might not have written "1984" if he had not been stationed there. After the Delta, Larkin goes to Rangoon, where she has her favorite areas to stroll, and reflects upon the Generals running the country, and their chief opponent Aung San Suu Kyi. Next she went to Moulmein, the town where Orwell's ancestors, the Limouzin's, started their sojourn in Burma in 1824. There she has an appointment with a living remnant of Empire, an elderly Anglo-Burmese woman who speaks with a crisp English accent, and elected to stay when the Generals staged their coup in the `60's. Larkin searches out those who may have known the Limouzin's with limited success. Her final stop is Katha, in the north, which played prominently in "Burmese Days" as the station for its protagonist, John Flory. A quiet, sad little town where she must stay one step ahead of the Intelligence Service, and their numerous informants, who want to know why she is really there.

I have had a long-term fascination with Burma, visiting it four times in the `80's. It is one of the most photogenic countries in the world, it seems all one has to do is point the camera, and one has a wonderful picture. It is also like visiting a vast open-air museum, with time stopping in 1948. Back in the `80's, one was limited, quite strictly, to a 7-day visa, and the Delta, Moulmein, and Katha were all "off-limits." Maymyo was particularly unique, with stage-coaches as the principal transport, and I was able to stay in one of the "turret rooms" at the Candacraig for a dollar a night, which included a tub of hot water delivered to the room. On the standard tour then were also Ingle Lake on the front cover, as well as Pagan, which Larkin does not discuss.

The photography and the uniqueness of the country distracted one from seeing the underlying sadness and oppression in which the people lived. Larkin has done an immense service in focusing on this aspect, using chance and arranged encounters with the Burmese as her vehicle. And time and time again she proves that Orwell, writing about the possible future of Western countries, was prophetic about the conditions in the country today.

At the end of World War II, if one was to predict the countries that would most likely succeed, one would have named Burma and Ceylon, due to their natural resources and educated population, and would never have named Singapore, which lacked both. The contrast is stunning, and the answer lies in leadership - how a few can upgrade, or repress the many. Alas, the later occurred in Burma, which remains an anachronism in the world today, much to the regret of its people who can rarely leave. In the words of Beatrice, the Anglo-Burmese: "They have managed to turn a paradise into something not much better than a living hell."

The book is now four years old, and I do hope Larkin can go back, staying under "the radar of intelligence," and continue to report on this fascinating country in her quiet, low-key manner. This is an excellent book.


Rating :

The Time of the Green Spectacles

Finding George Orwell in Burma


The premise of Emma Larkin's intriguing book is that the current political climate in Burma was eerily forecast in three of George Orwell's books: "Burmese Days," his first book based on his experience in the British Police Force in Burma in the 1920's; "Animal Farm," the allegory in which beasts take on the characteristics of their oppressors; and "1984," the grim projection of totalitarianism regimes. "It is a particularly uncanny twist of fate that these three novels effectively tell the story of Burma's recent history. The link begins with Burmese Days, which chronicles the country's period under British colonialism. Not long after Burma became independent from Britain in 1948, a military dictator sealed off the country from the outside world, launched "The Burmese Way to Socialism," and turned Burma into one of the poorest countries in Asia. The same story is told in Orwell's Animal Farm....Finally, in Ninteen Eighty Four," Orwell's description of a horrifying and soulless dystopia paints a chillingly accurate picture of Burma today, a country ruled by one of the world's most brutal and tenacious dictatorships." (Larkin, P. 3)
Larkin (a pseudonym, to protect her and her sources) is an American journalist based in Thailand who has seen modern Burma close-up.

As I write this, Beijing is opening the Olympics (August 8, 2008) The eyes of the world are on China, as it wrestles with coming of age economically and politically.
It is also the 20th Anniversary of a bloody uprising in Burma, which resulted in a brutal crackdown and the deaths of at least 3,000 people. The BBC (for which Orwell reported, and which itself is banned from reporting from inside Burma) says: "Elsewhere in Asia, human rights groups and activists who fled in the aftermath of the 1988 protests held demonstrations outside Burmese and Chinese embassies.
"We are here because China is the main supporter of the military regime," Kyaw Lin Oo, a Burmese activist, told reporters outside the Chinese embassy in Bangkok"

One of Burma's true heroes is Aung San Suu Kyi, who is the daughter of Aung San, who was assassinated as Burma gained independence from Britain. She has been under house arrest for virtually her entire adult life, but still heads the banned National League for Democracy (NLD). The Burma Government is faced with a dilemma with Aung San; he was instrumental in Burma's fight against colonialism and thus a national hero. But his daughter is the regime's sworn enemy. So the Government simply omits him in its official histories.Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma's Prisoner of Conscience
Larkin recounts a curious period in Burmese history. When the Japanese occupied Burma, there was a crop shortage, and the only thing available to feed the donkeys they depended upon for transportation was parched, white grain.The donkeys refused to eat it. So they developed an ingenious solution: they fashioned spectacles out of green glass and wire and hung them over the donkey's ears. The donkeys, thinking they were eating green grass, ate it happily. That period of Burmese History became known as "The Time of the Green Spectacles."
As one Burmese said: '"That's what we have to do...view the world through green glasses." White is green, bad is good, war is peace. Orwell is alive and well in Burma.


Rating :

Lovely Book

One of the most beautiful travel books I have ever read (and I have an affinity for travel writing, so have read A LOT of these). Almost as much a lament for the British colonial legacy (risky, I know, but there it is) as it is a lament for the country. Almost every page contains description that stops the heart.

Rating :

Fantastic book!

One of the best written books I've ever read! Emma Larkin's book shows us the horrific suffering in Burma that is largely ignored by the media around the world.

It is fascinating to see how George Orwell, perhaps unconsciously, had predicted in his writings what would happen in Burma after independence. Interestingly, the current Burmese regime is using the British colonial laws and rules to suppress freedoms and human rights of the people in Burma. Emma Larkin shows how the British created the ground in Burma, as in many other countries, for cruel dictatorships and oppression.

Rating :

More reviews...

1. ISBN13: 9781848850729
2. Condition: NEW
3. Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

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