Burma

I visited the two most sacred Buddhist sites within two days of arriving. At Kyaiktiyo a cool breeze sweeps incense and bell-borne prayers around the gold-leaf encrusted boulder and off the precipice it balances on. It is quiet there. A hushed roar wraps the base of Shwedagon Pagoda as thousands leave offerings and reverently bathe statues, treading on mats laid across the sizzling hot tiles. Contrasts continue in the centre of the country. On one day I watched the afternoon downpour creep over Mandalay, and fled down the winding hill road before it. Eight hours down the Ayerawaddy by boat, I breathed the cooling air at sunset in Bagan, where rain is rare and respectfully bare-footed tourists are challenged by the sun and dust at each of thousands of brick temples.

It was not all temples and tourist traps. I met a man in Kalaw who runs a house for children from conflict zones, who has delivered over 200 babies, and who had his legs branded as a political prisoner. While gliding past tomato vines growing on buoyant reed mats anchored in Inle Lake, I learned that the government has prohibited expansion of these thirsty, vital, floating gardens to ensure plenty of water reaches their hydro-electric dam under construction downstream.

I made the choice to visit Burma, and so should you. The people want your witness and your money more than well-intentioned principles and politics. You cannot understand the reality of the country until you have met the Moustache Brothers. “Take photos! Tell your friends!”

Courtney Landers

Paris

“Les francais sont psychorigides”, the Professor declared to the huge lecture hall filled with exchange students. We had come to Paris with dreams of bohemian artists, freshly baked bread and wine by the Seine: were the French really as uptight as he suggested?

First impressions seemed to confirm this view: our essays were strictly structured into “deux parties”; trips to the Jardins revealed the straightest hedges and perfect paths between the tulips, nothing like our sprawling parks. The Haussmanian boulevards drew lines across the city with their identical facades. Everyday life in Paris was governed by social codes: being extra polite to shopkeepers, waiting patiently for surly waiters, dressing immaculately just for a lecture…

Strangely, this all contributed to the Parisian charm, but there was another side to the city too. It may seem constrained; yet it is buzzing with cultural life. At the annual Nuit Blanche, when the city stays awake and mad installations appear everywhere, I came across a beautiful courtyard filled with bubble machines. In the summer there is a musical version, with a band on every street corner and people dancing down the boulevards. And incredible street art is everywhere once you start to look.

The people defied their unfriendly stereotype as well, as cultures mixed at markets, and conversations were struck up beside the canal on a sunny evening. Et bien sur, they know how to passionately protest at the drop of a hat. Psychorigide? Not really: like any city, Paris just needs to be discovered.                                                

Felicity Kneeshaw

Cocullo

Three months into my trip around Italy, fresh from an exhausting eight days in Rome – dodging Segways, glimpsing Raphael frescoes over the tops of baseball caps and being thoroughly sweaty all day every day – I made a wise detour into Lazio’s neighbour regions of Abruzzo and Molise. On top of being idyllic and comparatively unfrequented, these small provinces explode in festivity through the end of April to the beginning of May – which was perfect timing for me. In Ururi, one of four Italian/Albanian towns in Molise, I witnessed the annual Carrese, which involves three bull-led chariots bombing it through the crowded streets, each followed by a phalanx of horsemen, spurring the bulls on with lances.

In Abruzzo’s Cocullo, a town in the hills above Sulmona (the birthplace of Ovid), I saw the Festival of San Domenico, where a large icon of the saint is wrapped in live snakes and paraded through the town. On enquiring of the locals the origins, or purpose of this ceremony, I was told that they ‘have a lot of snakes’. These regions have great infrastructure for visitors (although aren’t amazing for budget travel, as you must either fork out for a B&B or hit a bus-shelter bench – neither being problem-free), and the lush green valleys rising to snow-caps, the perched medieval villages and vibrantly maintained traditions make them amazing to visit.

Jim Hilton

Copenhagen

Copenhagen feels like a truly modern city, one that changes with the times while retaining scattered hints of its past. When I moved there with my family this past summer, I learned to love the contradictions this has created in this compact capital. Although it has a vibrant democracy with a politically active people, on a midnight stroll I found guards a few minutes from the apartment standing still as mannequins guarding a royal residence. It houses the headquarters of Maersk, a massive business conglomerate, and identifies itself as of a hub of international trade. However, it also houses within its walls the socialist commune of Christiania, whose houses are dilapidated and whose main street is lined with public marijuana stands.

There are all the trappings of decadence and opulence that one might associate with aristocracy, with its magnificent Opera House, museums and palaces, and yet Copenhagen is one of the most economically equal countries in Europe. The grey skies and buildings, along with the notoriously cold people, misled me to imagine it as an unemotional and frigid place to live – and yet the jazz clubs, music festivals, and amusement park suggest otherwise. The Danes are indeed relatively homogenous, with many people looking like they just stepped out of a fashion magazine, and while they also have a reputation for cultural insensitivity with the 2005 Muhammad cartoon controversy, my family’s apartment in the centre of Copenhagen is a 2-minute walk from one of the most celebrated collections of Muslim art in the world. 

Paul Tait

Moscow

“Don’t trust the police.” Hardly reassuring words as we landed in Moscow airport, but they weren’t unpredictable. We learnt many more “don’ts” within days: don’t bother trying to smile at people (it won’t be reciprocated), don’t buy meat from the dubious vender stalls, and, above all, don’t trust the traffic lights . My stereotype of an undeveloped, potentially dangerous city was rapidly being confirmed, especially when we discovered barbed wire and guards on our housing estate. They were there to let you in and out of your home.  

But Moscow is full of surprises. I hadn’t expected the beautiful parks (complete with giant public beanbags), or the juxtaposition of traditional architecture with 70s tower blocks (of which the Russians are proud), and I was certainly ignorant of how Westernised the city had become. You could hardly drive two miles without another McDonalds poster shouting at you. Here, however, it was competing with ‘Starlite’, an American diner specialising in artery-clogging, heart-murdering milkshakes which taste fantastic. And all while eating your American burger, you could see the hammer and sickle on the buildings, and your waitress could understand nothing but Russian. The effect was disconcerting. Nothing seemed unusual – and yet everything was slightly different. But then that’s what Moscow is: a city of contrasts, a familiar dystopia. 

Bryony Glover

Budapest and Vienna

There’s something wonderful about traveling to somewhere unknown, free of preconceptions and prejudices; simply going and seeing what happens. This September I travelled to Budapest, before taking the train to Vienna. I’ve always found trains magical: as the original form of fast-paced tourist transport you can’t help but be transported to a world of top hats and crinoline hoop skirts – especially when you’re rolling along the edge of the Danube; watching the world as it passes by in front of your window.

Despite being part of Eastern Europe, Hungary still displays evidence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s influence. What I found truly wonderful about Budapest is the clash that defines it: it is at once an old, noble city and yet also one that shows the cracks of Soviet influence. It’s perfectly normal to spot a grey concrete monstrosity squatting alongside a majestic white and gold edifice, dilapidated, with shattered windows and cobwebs strung across the doorframe. Budapest is a city of contradictions: the ruin-bars for instance, built in hollowed out interiors of bombed townhouses, are the perfect mix of cool and class.

Once you cross the border to Vienna the divide is less apparent: now-forgotten broken down parts have been scrubbed away to leave a gleaming white-marble exterior, reminiscent of the 6e in Paris. But Vienna’s charm lies elsewhere: in the atmosphere of a forgotten city, a window into the roaring 20s where intellectuals sipped hot chocolate alongside slices of Sacher Torte, and went to the opera in horse-drawn coaches. From Budapest’s version the Statue of Liberty to Vienna’s iconic Ferris Wheel, I believe these two cities’ wealth lies in their undiscovered, unexploited facets.

Natalia Molina-Harno