Destination Golf - August 2017 * | Page 33

Bagan ancient city Myanmar tropical beach In a few years they will be here. The hordes. While the fact that Angkor Wat and the tiny adjacent town of Siem Reap has more than ten, Five Star hotels and three golf courses is not at all a bad thing, the pre Tomb Raider days of “discovering” the relics of relatively unknown mystic civilizations are long gone from that part of SE Asia. jungled mountains serving as rocky sentries guarding a millennia of culture, beauty and mystery. Its location and climate has left it a tantalizing prize on a strategic crossroad for both traders and conquerors. Myanmar, formerly Burma, is a country rich in culture and steeped in a tumultuous history that the whole western world seems to have not much more than a once removed connection to. Even though the country seems to have been at war, if not with an invader, then themselves, for its entire existence, the reading of its metamorphosis over the eons has an adventurous romantic ring to it, invoking images of elephant silhouettes ghosting amongst mist shrouded temple spires of ancient civilizations splayed across verdant rain kissed valleys surrounded by steep, For the same reasons Burma has been at the crux of several pivotal world events, today the country stands poised for invasion of a new marauder, the discerning traveler looking for an authentic experience. Of course sooner or later Myanmar will go the way of other emerging hot spots but for now, those looking for what author Rudyard Kipling noted, “This Burma is unlike any land you know about” can find exactly that. Myanmar shares borders with five countries, its 1900 kilometers of coastline touches the azure waters of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, untouched islands wait to be explored along practically all of the coastline, in the north temperate mountain regions are high enough above sea level that despite the southern latitude, it can be refreshingly chilly in the winter, Much of the country is split by a navigable river that is already running multiple week luxury tours with side trips to some of the most Volume 3 • Issue 40 33