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12 reasons to visit beautiful Myanmar

When I was getting ready for my trip to Myanmar, I told my friends about my next destination. I got two reactions, the first was, is it safe to go to Myanmar? The second: nobody goes there. Yes, statistics prove that Myanmar is the least visited country of Southeast Asia, mainly because of long years of military regime there. But the situation has changed since 2016 when Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace prize winner, took the lead of the Myanmar government. Despite the long Rohingya crisis rooted in history, the country is slowly getting better improving its economy and infrastructure. In my understanding, at the moment, traveling to this country is an opportunity to support positive changes there.

And yes, it was completely safe in all the places I visited. So here are my 12 main reasons for visiting this awakening country.

One of the most amazing things about our world is how the same action or tradition can be implemented so differently across cultures.

Take marriage for instance; it is practiced around the world, but the way a wedding is celebrated varies immensely across cultures. All over the world, weddings are rituals which join together two people - a man and woman coming of age and coming to love one another, and choosing to marry and live happy ever.

There are many different ways of wedding around the world. Not all weddings in every country are the same, and not everyone follows these traditions to tee. In any case, the way we each take something like a wedding and make it our own is quite special.

The Salone, also known as the Myanmar ‘Sea Gypsies’ or ‘Men of the sea ’, live a traditional lifestyle on the Southern part of the Myeik Archipelago, off the coast of Myanmar. Also known as Moken, many of the Salone are still nomadic people, and are among the smallest minorities in Myanmar.

Mergui Archipelago (also known as Myeik Archipelago or Myeik Kyunzu) is located far in the Southern part of Myanmar and is part of the Tanintharyi Region. It consists of more than 800 islands, varying in size from very small islands to large islands hundreds of square kilometers wide, all lying in the Andaman Sea off the Western shore of the Malay Peninsula, near its landward (northern) end where it joins the rest of Indochina.

This is Burma’s tropical paradise. The British colonial name of ‘Mergui’ still remains as opposed to the Burmese ‘Myeik’. Mergui has crystal-clear turquoise waters, palm-fringed white sand beaches, amazing dive sites, rich wildlife, and lush mangrove forests. The islands and surrounding seas are alive with an amazing diversity of flora and fauna and beautiful underwater scenes and marine life. One of the most alluring attractions for divers will be exploring the interesting marine life such as sharks and rays. Furthermore, there are countless species of exotic tropical fish living within the coral reefs. Mergui Archipelago is also famous as a destination for activities such as diving, snorkeling, sea kayaking, fishing and research. There are few islands left in the world as pristine and untouched as those in Mergui Archipelago. In fact, the Mergui Archipelago is one of the world’s best-kept secrets due to the fact that it was only opened to tourism in 1997 and arrivals are still limited by strict regulation.