“I didn’t want to leave this imperfect paradise, yet the very pleasure I took in it somehow rekindled my childhood tendency to imagine what other paradisal places there might be in the world…”

So writes Pascal Khoo Thwe in his famed memoir “From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey”. Pascal is from the Kayan-Padaung ethnic group, and was born in Phekon in Kayah State.

This journey will take you to Kayah State, as well as the “Grand Four” destinations of Myanmar, allowing you to escape the track well-trodden and to engage and interact with the people and place of the country on their own terms, in their own time. Preference is given to local food and where possible you will be travelling on two wheels or two legs.

The journey begins in Yangon, where you will not only explore the history of the city through the architecture and House of General Aung San, but also take a close at the country’s difficult present at the AAPP Museum for Political Prisoners. Next travel onto Bagan and Mandalay, avoiding the crowds by spending some time at Sagaing, the kernel of Buddhism in Myanmar. From Inle Lake you will travel down to little Kayah State, climbing hills, descending down caves, and trying your hand at making the fiery Kayah pepper sausage.