Tailor, Yangon

A simple painted sign in both Burmese and English seen in the Bahan township of the former Burmese capital.

Tailor

means literally "Sewing shop."

Location: Schwe Gone Taing Road / Picture taken in January 2013

Golden Cuckoo, Bagan

Bagan, on the eastern bank of the Irrawaddy River in central Myanmar, is one of the most extraordinary archeological sites in Asia. The area is also well-known for its lacquerware. Actually a lot of lacquer objects sold in neighbouring countries come from Myanmar, and mainly from Bagan. The main production centre in the region is the small village of Myinkaba between Old Bagan and New Bagan. Dozens of workshops can be found between centuries-old temples and stupas.



While a fair share of the lacquerware sold to tourists will be of low quality, with a bamboo-only frame and around seven to ten layers of lacquer, some of the workshops in Myinkaba, including the family-run Golden Cuckoo, also produce good quality articles with sixteen to twenty layers of lacquer. These are made of fine pieces of bamboo tied together with horse or donkey hair and can take months to produce. Indeed each coat of lacquer must be allowed to dry before it is sanded down with ash from rice husk and the next layer can be applied. Depending on the season and consequently the degree of humidity, this can take between five and ten days per layer. Therefore it is wrong to expect high quality lacquerware to be cheap, even if the price quoted first can usually be brought down during a good-humoured haggling.


U Tin Htun + Daw Aye Aye
Golden Cuckoo
Family Lacquer-ware
Workshop
Myinkaba (Sein Gone Quarter)
Location: Bagan - Chauk Road, Myinkaba Village, Bagan / Pictures taken in January 2013

Bus companies, Bagan

During a recent holiday in Myanmar (hence the near absence of posting over the past few weeks) I came across hundreds of painted signs, mostly on wood and metal. With our days already very busy, I photographed only a fraction of them. Below is a small selection from the bus station of Nyaung U, which serves the Bagan area famous for its thousands of temples built between the 11th and the 13th centuries.

Some of these signs include elaborate drawings of buses.

The bus station consists of a row of open offices for the different companies that serve the town.

The Burmese script is very elegant, if slightly difficult to decipher for the average visitor to the country. Fortunately, there is always someone willing to help.

The Latin script is very rarely seen on painted signs. Only a handful of companies that target tourists use it to advertise their services.

Location: Main Road, Bagan / Pictures taken in January 2013