with friends in Myanmar

January 22, 2020

I’ve recently returned from a trip to Myanmar (Burma), and have recovered from jet lag. It is a long trip, but so well worth the time and effort.

My city, Fort Wayne, Indiana, is a Friendship City with Mawlamyine, and this is the third time I have been there. The friendships we have established are substantial, especially among the students and university faculty who have spent time in the two cities.

On this trip, after one week in Mawlamyine, we stayed for another week to learn more about other places in the country we had heard so much about (Bagan, Pindaya, Inle Lake, Yangon).

Bagan is a place of beauty–old pagodas in a landscape that glows in the evening light, a newly built monastery made of petrified wood, a laquerware workshop–I’ll try to update this entry with more details and photographs soon. I want to write more about all the places we visited and people we met.

For now, I am preparing for the launch of Blue Daisy in just a few weeks, and reading through galleys of All He Knew. This will be an exciting year!