Myanmar is full of contrasts. From children who collect garbage as job to people selling jewelry on a street coffee table, from coca-cola trucks selling drinks in old style bamboo villages to bustling new cities trying to cope with the rising chinese-fueled contruction industry, from monks with smartphones to families with nothing.

At the same time, the simple beauty remains. Lively rural markets selling strange creatures and vibrant urban street food stalls that spread everywhere with their child-size tables and chairs, genuine smiles of the poor but ever generous local people and the precious gifts from nature surrounding them, like observing millions of bats going out of their cave at sunset while a old couple beat drums to change their flight patterns in the sky, curves and counter-curves of a black snake stretching towatds horizon.

Interweaving all together is an eternal and passionate belief in buddhist religion and culture, both offering and taking the colors of a whole nation, giving birth to its gentle and enduring people, but also to a melting pot of violent racism against muslims, government-run drug plantations, regional guerrilla armies and their never ending fight against the dictatorial government or the persecussion of ethnic minoties on many of its states. Warmth and pain, a country divided by its own contradictions. Nevertheless, always offering a smile to the stranger, an open door to the passerby.