This is the year.

Bagan This past weekend I traveled to Bagan (in Central Myanmar) with Sophie, Andi and Sarah. Bagan is absolutely incredible and if you're ever in the area, its definitely worth the really cold bus ride. I was just excited to get out of the city and spend some time in the nature and the sun, but Bagan is so much more than that. Bagan was the capital of the Pagan kingdom from the 9th to the 13th century (the kingdom that unified the regions that now make up modern-day Burma). I read that there were over 10,000 temples at one point in the region, and there are now over 2000 scattered around a 50 square km region. It really is absolutely stunning. Pictures are really the only way of representing the beautify, so this post is less writing, and more a mini photo essay. A temple near where we stayed at sunrise Sarah, Andi, Sophie and I at the top of a temple waiting for the sunset      How we got around in Bagan So many beautiful ancient t...

This week, the cover of Time (in Asia) features one of the most prominent Buddhist monks in Burma, U Wirathu, with the headline “The Face of Buddhist Terror”. Wirathu has called on Buddhists to unite against the Muslim “threat,” accusing them of breading too fast and controlling the business community. He is also the infamous spiritual leader of the 969 movement , a movement that promotes the display of the Buddhist “969” symbol to indicate that a shop is owned by Buddhists and that Muslims are not welcome. The cover is incredibly controversial here, with many Buddhists who otherwise oppose Wirathu standing behind him in support of what they see as a foreign attack on their religion. Anti-Muslim sentiment in Myanmar dates back many years, although the situation became the most violent in June 2012 when clashes broke out between Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, who are not recognized as citizens of Myanmar. In March 2013, rioters in Rakhine state initiated a three-day rampage,...

 Hello! Sorry I haven't updated for awhile. Work has been busy and I've been reading a lot which has been wonderful! My work here changes everyday but I've been learning a lot about the justice system here. Although its far from perfect (an article I recently read described the status of law here as equivalent to 12th century England), there are many people working hard to promote reforms.  I can't say too much about what I'm doing online, but I'm working broadly on research and projects related to improving access to justice.  <-- Here's a sneak peak of what I read at work. Haha I wish - it would be really helpful if I could read that seeing as this package (called the Official Gazette) is how laws are published in Burma. On the weekend, I decided I would explore and try to find the river. It shouldn't be hard to "find" as the city of Yangon is bordered all along the south side by a river, but a waterfront never seeme...

Tomorrow morning, my mother is flying back to Canada. Her two weeks here allowed me to be a tourist and so we thought we'd write about and show all the cool things we've visited since we got here. I'm pretty impatient, so as soon as we landed in Yangon, we taxied downtown and dropped off our things at our (great!) guest house. We started by wandering around downtown, which is really an incredible experience. The sheer number of people, smells, modes of transportation, foods, sounds, and animals that manage to share the road is incredible. And sitting magnificently in the middle of the main downtown traffic circle is Sule Paya (a large Buddhist temple). We made our way to the main market (Bogyoke Aung San market), a large building housing everything from jewellery, tailors, and fried crickets. The street markets Outside Bogyoke market The flower market Yangon can be incredibly humid so tourists should plan to take many showers and understand that there...