I drove through Oregon last week and took some night sky photos. These first two are from Indian Mary park in southern Oregon, along the banks of the Rogue River:
I drove through Oregon last week and took some night sky photos. These first two are from Indian Mary park in southern Oregon, along the banks of the Rogue River:
After my recent trip through Myanmar, I backpacked across Laos. Much like Myanmar, Laos was closed to tourism and the West for decades, but has recently re-opened its doors. Unlike Myanmar, Laos is officially a communist state – one of only five remaining in the world, alongside Cuba, China, Vietnam, and (nominally) North Korea.
I recently had the opportunity to travel across Myanmar for the first time. It’s a fascinating country, only recently emerging from decades of isolation. Travelers here today are greeted with the first few baby steps toward a tourism industry, as well some of the kindest people and most spectacular sights in Asia.
Myanmar is not the easiest country to approach. It remains, effectively, a military dictatorship wracked with corruption and abuse. Government officials control the airlines and hotels for personal profit. Large swaths of eastern Myanmar are dedicated to opium plantations funneling foreign currency into the pockets of powerful officials. Even its name is controversial: many foreign governments still officially recognize only its traditional name, Burma, as a political statement against the authoritarian regime that renamed it Myanmar in 1989.