Myanmar

Myanmar opens a window onto a Southeast Asia that has largely vanished elsewhere. The temple-studded plain of Bagan — over 2,000 Buddhist pagodas and monasteries spread across 40 square kilometres — rivals Angkor in scale and exceeds it in solitude. Climb a permitted temple at dawn and watch hot-air balloons drift over the Irrawaddy River as the spires catch the first light.

Yangon's Shwedagon Pagoda, sheathed in genuine gold and crowned with diamonds, is the country's spiritual epicentre. The surrounding city mixes crumbling colonial architecture with tea shops, mohinga fish-soup stalls, and one of Asia's most welcoming populations. Mandalay, the last royal capital, anchors the cultural heartland: U Bein Bridge at sunset, silk-weaving workshops in Amarapura, and the hill-top monasteries of Sagaing.

Inle Lake's leg-rowing fishermen, floating gardens, and stilt-house villages feel like stepping into a National Geographic spread. The trek from Kalaw to Inle through Shan State's rolling hills and overnight village stays is one of Southeast Asia's classic walks. The beaches of Ngapali on the Bay of Bengal remain blissfully quiet, and the remote Chin State's tattooed-face women preserve traditions found nowhere else on earth.