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The Last Of The Burma Comics

Golden Rock

Golden Rock is, as the name implies, a rock that has been covered in gold leaf. It's somehow balanced at the top of a mountain and tons of Burmese go to visit every year. You take a truck part of the way up (with seats not made for people my size), and then you can either walk the rest of the way up or be carried up in a litter.

Inle Lake

Inle Lake was my favorite place in Burma. It's a large lake with a number of towns on it. All the houses are on stilts, there are no roads or cars, and everyone gets around on boats.

These are three of five buddhas that have been so covered in gold leaf that none of their features remain.

Bagan

Normally I'm terrible at taking photographs. I can go a year without taking ten. With this trip I tried to change that. Here are some photos from Bagan, one of the first places we visited in Burma. In Bagan there are about five thousand pagodas and temples. Here are just a few of them.

A pagoda inside a pagoda.

And I'm not sure how serious the guy doing the detail work on this temple took his job.

Burmese Days

A number of people have asked if I'm planning to do a graphic novel about Burma. I don't think two weeks is enough time to do a place justice, so I'd be hesitant because of that. I'd also be hesitant because there is already a pretty good graphic novel about Burma: Guy Delisle's Burma Chronicles. I recommend it (and all his other books).

The Cars of Burma

When you go on a vacation, there are all the tourist spots you are supposed to see. There are all the things that everybody takes pictures of. I've got plenty of photos of pagodas, buddhas, temples and bridges. But just as interesting to me are much more mundane things, like the vehicles people get around in. Maybe it's only me, but I think all these cars, trucks and buses are awesome.

And by far the coolest vehicle I saw was these little old Mazda trucks. They were everywhere.

More From Burma

I had really hoped to do a lot of sketching while I was in Burma, but I didn't end up doing as much as I would have liked. My mom arranged the trip and packed as many things in as possible, which was good, but when you are seeing lots of things in a short amount of time you don't really have the time to sit and draw. Tourist trips are much more photo opportunity oriented than fifteen minute sketch opportunity oriented. Which was too bad (wouldn't it be great if, instead of cameras, people whipped out little sketchpads?), but I did get some sketches in. Most of the sketches were done in blue pencil and then inked later.