In Orwell’s Footsteps

A two-day stopover before Burma. The ceramic stupas of Wat Pho under a stormy sky, street-kitchen woks smoking late into the night: Bangkok is a loud, humid overture — the exact opposite of what awaits us.

One July evening, a night bus carries us from Bangkok to Mae Sot, on the Burmese border. The next day we cross it between Mae Sot and Myawaddy: here we are in Burma.

In Karen State, limestone peaks rise out of the flooded paddies like islands. At the foot of Mount Zwegabin, hundreds of seated Buddhas line up in the soaked grass. The monsoon turns everything a deep green, and clouds catch on the summits from early morning.

The bus drops us in Moulmein, where Orwell set Shooting an Elephant. The colonial town stretches along the Salween estuary, between faded façades and the hill crowned with pagodas. Further south, near Mudon, the giant reclining Buddha of Win Sein Taw Ya looms out of the mist, preceded by an endless procession of stone monks.

The gilded boulder balanced on the edge of the abyss is one of the country’s most sacred sites. In the monsoon, the mountain vanishes into the clouds: monks and pilgrims move through a white fog where the drop can barely be guessed.

The former colonial capital, its covered markets and workshops open to the street. Above it all, the Shwedagon: a golden spire that the faithful circle barefoot between two downpours, pouring water over the Buddha of the weekday they were born on.

From Yangon, the train crawls north towards Mandalay, rattling along a line laid in British times. Through the open window slide paddies still ploughed with buffalo; at every stop, vendors and children fill the station halls.

Orwell trained as a police officer in Mandalay. Around the city: the unfinished pagoda of Mingun, the arcades of Sagaing, the seven hundred marble slabs of Kuthodaw. In the stone carvers’ street, white Buddhas emerge from clouds of dust. At dusk, the sun sets over the moat of the royal palace.

The mythical city of a thousand temples — one of our favourite places in the world. More than two thousand brick monuments are scattered across the plain, among sugar palms and fields. We get lost in the temples’ dark corridors, torch in hand, then wait for the sun to set behind the stupas. On the last morning, the monastery of Mount Popa rises on its volcanic plug, guarded by macaques.

At Pindaya’s rotating market, hill peoples come down in bright turbans; above the village a long covered stairway climbs to caves filled with thousands of Buddhas. Then several days on foot from Kalaw towards the lake, from Pa-O to Danu villages: red earth, terraced paddies, women transplanting rice in the rain. In the evening a monastery takes us in, and the young monks break off their football game to look at our photos.

On the lake, Intha fishermen row with one leg, standing at the stern of their narrow boats. Stilt villages, floating gardens, weaving workshops. A little apart, the ruined stupas of Indein rise out of the vegetation.

Our last Burmese days. At dawn, at the Mahamuni pagoda, the face of the great golden Buddha is ritually washed. At the jade market, traders squat on wooden tables and inspect stones by torchlight amid the hubbub of bargaining.

After Burma, an interlude in the Gulf of Thailand. Koh Tao, ‘Turtle Island’, is little more than a handful of white-sand coves and granite boulders. In the evening, on the beach, fire dancers whirl their torches above the water; in the morning, we dive on an encrusted wreck, its gun still pointing towards the surface.

North again, to the old capital of Siam — the very city Burmese armies razed in 1767. At Wat Mahathat, a Buddha head is caught in the roots of a fig tree, as if the forest had wanted to keep the kingdom’s memory.

Chiang Mai, the old capital of the Lanna kingdom. The golden chedi of Wat Phra Singh, the brick elephants of Wat Chedi Luang, prayer flags snapping in the monastery courtyards: the city has kept a provincial gentleness.

North of Chiang Mai, Doi Chiang Dao, one of the highest mountains in the country, disappears into the clouds. At its foot a cave runs deep beneath the mountain: by lamplight the formations take on bluish tints, and Buddhas keep watch in the darkness.

Then the mountain roads up to the Golden Triangle, where the Mekong separates Thailand, Laos and Burma. Mist-filled valleys, red laterite tracks, rivers swollen by the monsoon. Here life still follows the rhythm of fields and monasteries.

The first Thai kingdom, its ruins resting among ponds and great trees. Standing Buddhas, backlit, watch over a silent park. A peaceful stop before heading back south.

Heading east, onto the Khorat plateau. On the summit of an extinct volcano, the Khmer sanctuary of Phanom Rung; at Phimai, a sandstone temple whose plan is said to have inspired Angkor Wat. Monks in saffron robes walk through as if the Khmer empire had never retreated.

Khao Yai, Thailand’s first national park. In the canopy a white-handed gibbon swings from branch to branch; on the ground, fungi and lizards thrive in the monsoon damp. The Haew Suwat waterfall roars, and at dusk a herd of wild elephants crosses the track.

Back in Bangkok for the last days. At Rajadamnern Stadium, the historic temple of Thai boxing, fighters clash amid the shouts of gamblers placing bets with wild hand signals. In the street children wave, the hawkers resume their dance: the loop is closed.