Myanmar

Myanmar stretches from the northern and eastern hills to the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, the Irrawaddy River flowing through its heart. In Yangon, the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda crowns a hill above the city and glows at sunset; tree-lined Kandawgyi and Inya lakes invite slow walks, and the riverside quarter keeps colonial-era buildings of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

In the Shan Hills, Inle Lake wakes to cool, misty mornings: stilt villages, floating gardens, wooden boats and fishermen, with workshops weaving silk and lotus fibre and working silver. From Yangon or Inle, the classic circuit continues to Bagan, a UNESCO-listed plain on a bend of the Irrawaddy with more than two thousand 11th–13th-century temples and stupas, and to Mandalay with its royal-era palace walls and moat. The Mergui Archipelago in the Andaman Sea makes a seasonal island escape.

Breakfast means mohinga, a fish-broth noodle soup; then come tea-leaf salad (lahpet thoke), Shan noodles, curries with many small side dishes and busy tea shops. The cool dry season, roughly November to February, is the most comfortable; hot months precede the monsoon, with rains roughly June to October. Myanmar suits lovers of culture and architecture, photographers, fans of slow lake and river landscapes, and couples.