Should you go? Is it safe?

MANDALAY, Burma — Rudyard Kipling brought the world’s attention to Burma in a famous 1890 poem called “Mandalay” — then part of the British colony of India. Kipling extolled the beauty of this mysterious, inaccessible land and its people.

In 1958, the poem was adapted into a song—”The Road to Mandalay”—recorded by Frank Sinatra, and the poem became further entrenched in Western popular culture.

Little has changed for much of the Southeast Asian country of 53 million people since Kipling first saw his immortal place 130 years ago. After leaving the major cities, the Burmese countryside — also known as Burma — is like stepping back into Kipling’s 19th-century poetry.

Farmers are still cultivating rice fields by hand, many villages have no electricity, horses and cows transport people on unpaved roads past banana trees, women wash their clothes in the river, and Burmese cover their faces with a unique cosmetic called thanaka – made from ground bark Success – a tradition that dates back more than 2,000 years.

Cruise in a scenic atmosphere

I recently had the opportunity to explore the Burmese countryside in the comforts of home, sailing along the Irrawaddy for 10 days from the country’s second largest city, Mandalay, to Piye on the observation deck of a 44-person luxury cruise ship that has been around since 2016 Boats sailing on the Ayeyarwady River.

At the time, democratic reforms initiated by the military junta opened the door to a large number of tourists to a country that had been largely closed to the world for six years.

Tourists are beginning to flock to Myanmar, hoping for a chance to see a region with thousands of spectacular and unspoiled stupas and temples, and to get a real look at the monastic life that permeates this spiritual country.

When the tourists come, so do the cruise ships. In 2016, about 10 international routes provided sailing services on the Irrawaddy River, which runs north to south through the heart of Myanmar, from its source in the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean. The cruise ship was operating at almost full capacity.

But Myanmar’s tourism boom didn’t last long. Civil unrest involving the Muslim minority Rohingya has erupted in a remote part of the country called Rakhine state. More than 500,000 Rohingya have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh. Words such as “ethnic cleansing” and even “genocide” are used to describe the alleged atrocities by the Myanmar military.

In short, Myanmar has become a political pariah and many tourists are terrified.