my trip to Shan State in Burma

still with Chiang Tung





to my compatriot members look what I found in the chapel of the stupa temple Long Live the Princess













one of the remaining 12 gates of Chiang Tung







Stay tuned for pictures of my journey from Chiang Tung to Mong La (เมืองลา) once part of the Sipsongpanna in southern China

at Nong Ngoen หนองเงิน village outside of Chiang Tung,

Interesting pictures of Shan State!

What brought you to this part of Burma?






:horse:

Juan Pilgrim said:

Interesting pictures of Shan State!

What brought you to this part of Burma?






:horse:

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Shan State speaks a language that can be classified as Thai and ethnically we are the same, so going there buying some treats for the children in the villages is like giving them some hope that we have not yet abandoned them to Burma.

here is how the lake in the middle of Chiang Tung looks like in the morning

Saigoneseguy said:

You can visit Northwestern Vietnam provinces of Son La, Lai Chau where there are a large Tai population. Also Xishuangbanna in Kunming.

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We were less than 1 kilometers away from Sipsongpanna when we were in Shan, in fact the last city we visited in Shan was historically and culturally part of Sipsongpanna but there wasnt anything interesting about it just Chinese casinos and stuff so I took only 2 very boring photos.

ps. there is a very old Laotian song about how they lost cities with Tai locals (Thais and Laos are the same people under different flags) to Vietnam during the Indochina War.

had Japanese ever invaded Shan State? bcoz looking at the style of the structure, it looks something 'japanese colonial'....

OshHisham said:

had Japanese ever invaded Shan State? bcoz looking at the style of the structure, it looks something 'japanese colonial'....

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no, but Siam did during WWII, to reincorporate it back from the British rule and to push to help Japan in the China-India-Burma theater but we never got there and had to 'return' Shan State to Britain after the war was over. Not only that we had to return regions that we got back in return with the help of the Japanese (such as Cambodia and Laos) we also further lost more territory (if you take a look at modern days Laos you will see a region that goes beyond the Mekong River), and plus Shan State of course.

OshHisham said:

had Japanese ever invaded Shan State? bcoz looking at the style of the structure, it looks something 'japanese colonial'....

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It looks nothing like Japanese architecture.:nuts:

OshHisham said:

it is not 'japanese architecture' literally, but a type of architecture widely used by japanese for public building in japan and its colonial territories (especially Taiwan) :yes:

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That's what I meant. These houses are not of japanese colonial style, which only exists in Taiwan and Korea. Japan occupied South East Asia only for several years as an invasion army during war time and not as a colonial power. They destroyed more than they built (if they'd built anything at all).

Saigoneseguy said:

That's what I meant. These houses are not of japanese colonial style, which only exists in Taiwan and Korea. Japan occupied South East Asia only for several years as an invasion army during war time and not as a colonial power. They destroyed more than they built (if they'd built anything at all).

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that bridge over the Kwae River in Western Thailand :lol: other than that I'm not sure...

Many travel./ backpackers site rate Myanmar as the most excitin country to visit in ASEAN and it has the nicest people... don't know whether its true because I always thought Thailand is the most exciting . What differences ( apart from level of development ) did you spot when you crossed the border from Thai to Myanmar ?

Skyprince said:

Many travel./ backpackers site rate Myanmar as the most excitin country to visit in ASEAN and it has the nicest people... don't know whether its true because I always thought Thailand is the most exciting . What differences ( apart from level of development ) did you spot when you crossed the border from Thai to Myanmar ?

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well Shan State is pretty much a continuation of Northern Thailand, its not the 'real Burma' yet, the roads are really bad and there were checkpoints every 100 kilometers or so and if you are a girl of less than 25 yo. you cannot leave your area without a permission because they occupied Shan State You are also not allowed to take pictures of anyone in the police force or in the army or any checkpoints. All the products are Thai, the television channels are Thai, the cars drive on the wrong side of the road like in the USA, the food are not really spicy for me at all and we had to bring our own 'sembal', the people there can all speak Thai (the local languages are also variations of Tai languages), not many things to buy, they prefer Yuans or Bahts or Dollars to their own currency, depends where you are in Burma, as for Shan they prefer bahts. Burma is really not populated compared to Thailand which is smaller. Burma only has about 45 million people and its about the size of Thailand and Malaysia combined.

aside from that, Burma is cooler in temperature, the closer we got to Thailand when we were driving back, the hotter it got, the mountains became 'balder', less trees, sunnier, no more fog, the roads became better, even the signs turned into Thai like 300 kilometers towards the main crossing point. Everything, barbers, temples, shops, cement quarry, lumber companies.

Burmese people also look more Indian than average SEAsians too, they have nice noses and a lot of people have nice brown eyes and good skin tone. You will be able to tell if the people in Shan are Burmese or local Tais because Tais tan more 'yellowly' while Burmese tan 'bronzely'. and yes they are nice people and polite, which makes it even more depressing that they are living with that type of A-hole military government. Without the support of countries like Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, Burma would not even be in ASEAN, and plus why did ASEAN even allow communist countries with no free elections to join anyways??? It should just be Brunei Singapore Malaysia Indonesia Thailand and the Philippines, now even East Timor is in...