Experience the untold excitements of Burma with our 14-day Burma Group tour 2011, beginning Oct 6.
Cost: £2,495 per person Festival departures £2,545 per person
Interest in Burma has dramatically increased since Aung San Suu Kyi, the country's famed democracy campaigner, announced that she was no longer opposed to tourism. This brand new group tour will introduce you to the culture of Burma, a fascinating land of unseen excitements. You will discover its most popular and spectacular sights, beginning with the colonial charm of capital city Yangon, where, amongst Edwardian and Victorian buildings, the tapering spires of shimmering golden pagodas soar into the sky. Here you will visit the most majestic of these, the Shwedagon Pagoda, some 2500 years old. After Yangon you will travel to religious Bagan, with its thousands of stupas and Buddhist pagodas, then continue on to cultural Mandalay and the ancient capital cities of Ava, Amarapura and Sagaing. Your tour will end at massive Inle Lake, which is rimmed with high hills and villages on stilts.
Accommodation throughout is a tasteful mix of modern and character hotels, with breakfast included, as well as a special welcome dinner on the second day. Travel is by coach, plane and boat.
There are also two special festival departures. The first, on the tour beginning on October 6, includes a visit to Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda Festival at Inle Lake. Here, in the company of thousands from across Shan State, you will observe a procession of leg-rowed boats ceremoniously tugging four Buddha statues on a royal barge clockwise around Inle Lake. Hundreds of other vessels travel in the entourage in a general festive atmosphere. The second, on November 6, includes a visit to Shwezigon Festival, Bagan, where you can enjoy evening entertainment programs such as Zats (a variety of dances, songs, short and long plays) and Anyeints (a performance of a few hours in which a number of 'jokers' caricature current situations). Open air screenings of popular movies are also sometimes shown. On full moon day there is a communal offering of food and various domestic articles to the monks from the nearby monasteries.
Terms & conditions: Subject to availability. Flights from London Heathrow are included, as are assisted transfers and all internal travel.
