An estimated 15 billion bricks are produced in Bangladesh each year by an industry that employs nearly 2,000,000 workers during the peak season and 800,000 during the off-season. At the nearly 1,200 brick kilns surrounding Dhaka, workers often live in … Continued
Scattered around Dhaka, Bangladesh’s chaotic capital, brick factories cut and bake the foundation of the countries breakneck building boom. Despite recent initiatives to improve efficiency and reduce green house gasses, Bangladesh’s brick making produces 6-million tons of CO2 annually, according … Continued
Hope often finds itself in the most dire of places and Dhaka’s School of Hope takes no exception. Planted in a slum in the city’s northern edge and surrounded by mosquito-filled marshes and grinding poverty, the School of Hope nourishes … Continued
There wasn’t much to do in Thaunggok besides wander around and by 9pm everything was shut down and the streets hauntingly dark. On my first day there I rented a motorbike but ended up returning it after about 5 minutes … Continued
Many areas of western Myanmar are off-limits to tourists/foreigners due to pockets of insurgency as well as the government’s inability to establish regional authority. It is possible to secure government permits to explore these areas but the onerous and time-consuming, … Continued
Yangon, which means “End of Strife,” was founded in the early 11th century. Nearly 4.5 million people call this sprawling city home that was the country’s capital until 2005, when the military government decamped 200 miles north to the newly … Continued
Walking the streets of Yangon, the past clashes with the present and you feel like everything’s evolving around you. Many travelers who’d visited only 6 months before couldn’t believe the changes that took place in prices, number of tourists, etc. … Continued
A highlight of Myanmar is its people, a diverse soup of Muslim, Hindu, Christian and Chinese (there’s even a huge Chinatown in Yangon). The faces below were shot in Yangon, the country’s bustling commercial and cultural (but not political) capital. … Continued
Militant monks? Sounds like a contradiction; but not in Myanmar, a beautiful, elusive country full of paradoxes and conundrums that tease the traveler’s mind. Monks play a huge role in Myanmar – from spiritual leaders to fomenting political discussion and descent. … Continued
Most travelers who venture into Laos stick to the country’s mountainous north. Southern Laos, under appreciated and hardly explored, holds as much beauty – if not more – than its northern cousin. Below are a few pics from Kong Lor … Continued