On the Shadow Tracks: A Journey through Occupied Myanmar

by Clare Hammond

'On the Shadow Tracks harnesses the railway lines of Myanmar’s complicated past to its turbulent present, and the result is part travelogue, part history and completely absorbing. An astonishing achievement’
Joanna Lumley

In 2016, while working as a journalist in Yangon, Clare Hammond discovered an obscure map that showed a web of new railways spanning the length and breadth of the country - railways not shown on any other publicly available maps. She was determined to uncover the railways' origins, purpose, and most of all, the silence that surrounded them. She would spend three months travelling on these mysterious railways, and the next five years piecing their story together.

Her journey would take her from Myanmar's tropical south to the embattled mountain towns that border India and China. In dilapidated carriages, along tracks in disrepair, through contested ethnic states and former sites of forced labour, visiting temples, tea shops and festivals, Clare encountered a colourful and contradictory Myanmar through the stories of its people. Simultaneously a lush and evocative travelogue, an unsparing account of Myanmar's recent history, and an astonishing, conversation-shifting engagement with Britain's colonial legacy, On the Shadow Tracks is that rare and necessary a book that finds and tells the truth.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, History

400 pages, Paperback

Published September 9, 2025

Reviews

[Bagus]

Today, I happened to read the article Back to ‘Normal’: Rethinking State–Society Relations in Myanmar by Htet Hlaing Win, which I find relevant to this book. In the article, Htet Hlaing Win argues that successive Myanmar governments, influenced by pre-modern Burmese rulers, have historically prioritised the protection and promotion of Buddhism over addressing the needs of the people, even during U Nu’s government between 1948 and 1962. This perspective echoes Clare Hammond’s exploration of Myanmar’s railways, which also reveals a pattern of state priorities skewed towards control rather than public service.

I find it puzzling why the trend of Myanmar’s governance tends to focus on religious and military objectives at the expense of public welfare. It goes against the principle of social contract as traditionally understood. Rather than “a government for the people”, Myanmar is best described as “a government at the expense of the people”. This pattern was momentarily disrupted during the quasi-democratic period from 2011 to 2021 when civilian concerns were briefly prioritised. However, the 2021 military coup marked a return to the "normal" state of affairs, where the government once again neglected public welfare in favour of religious and military pursuits.

Hammond’s journey, detailed in her exploration beginning in 2016, takes place during this transitional period under Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party, when there was a nominally democratic government. During this time, she encountered Myanmar’s railways as largely dysfunctional and disconnected relics of a bygone era. Her difficulties were compounded by the fact that many areas in Myanmar were off-limits to foreigners, even during this transitional period. She began her journey from Dawei in the Tanintharyi Region, deep in southern Myanmar, all the way to the north where the Shan States border China, traversing territories that are controlled by various ethnic armed organisations ruling the peripheries of Myanmar where illicit economies are dominant and rule of law nonexistent.

Delving deeper, Hammond reveals that these railways were originally designed by British colonisers and later maintained by the Tatmadaw (Myanmar’s military) not to serve the public but to project power into remote areas, facilitating resource extraction and military movements. This historical context mirrors the broader political landscape in Myanmar, where the state has consistently prioritised religious and military goals over the welfare of its citizens. For example, the military’s ongoing airstrikes on areas controlled by resistance forces, regardless of civilian conditions, result in high civilian casualties, reflecting a continued disregard for public welfare.

Hammond’s examination of Myanmar’s railways thus serves as a microcosm of broader state-society relations in the country. The railways, like the government’s approach to public health and welfare, have been used to assert control rather than to serve the people genuinely. This dynamic is starkly illustrated by the military junta’s neglect of public health during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to widespread suffering and death as local aid groups and civil society organisations stepped in to fill the void left by the state. When viewed alongside Htet Hlaing Win’s insights, Hammond’s work paints a comprehensive picture of a country where the state’s priorities have long been misaligned with the needs of its people, resulting in a persistent history of suffering, resistance, and survival.

[Daniel Kukwa]

I never would have thought that an examination of Myanmar's railway system would produce the most unique look at an isolated & devastated country that I've read in some time. But Clare Hammond manages to pack in a great deal of history and empathy into this look at the price paid by people for decades of colonialism and military rule. Incredibly sad reading.

[Rosalia Adisti]

It’s amazing, and tense, and emotional, making me feel all the emotions. Some of the topics feels close to home. Corruption, incompetence, power abuse. I was also surprised to see forced work topic being very recent…

[y]

[this is meant to be a private review for myself]
Dawei
• Author moved from HK to Myanmar in view of the ostensible upheavals in its mode of governance
• The military had no hold or presence in Tanintharyi/the South (Dawei)
• Hence shoveled their way into these peoples’ lives and encroached on their spaces
• Forced them into indentured servitude and made them build the railway, of which there was even a sudden revision after they had spent months logging and clearing a path for the initial route
• Many families could not maintain their livelihoods and thus fled to Thailand or the East
• Allowed military a means to consolidate power in the South while building a railway for the natural gas to be carted off to Thailand
• Caused mass deforestation and eco-destruction
• Ba Thein (a village elder) and Min (a civil rights activist) bring author around to see what is preserved in their village
• Author was there as a journalist, but came to realise smth was iffy about the railway’s history
• Censorship, propaganda (focusing on openings and inaugurations) that occluded much of its brutal and violent history
• Google barely shows anything, and there are no official books on it either
• Situation is worse in Myanmar due to broken communication lines and unestablished networks
• Hence she decided to take the railway and start in Dawei
• Stayed in a hotel where she met Thein Htaik —— he linked her up to other survivors
• People readily shared experiences about the 2nd death railway, but were not able to share more on WHY it was built and neither comment on the chain of command.
• They were more willing to share because of the transition to Aung San Suu Kyi’s government.

The Delta
• Hammond takes a taxi to Hlaing Tharyar station as Yangon Central Railway station does not run there
• Under Than Shwe, a new railway to Panthein is built at the cost of expenses that could be used to help the people after the 2008 cyclone (Nargis)
• Gov had even blocked international aid, citing that the people could fish from ditches or eat frogs for subsistence
• Author is trying to travel to Pathein, but takes 36 hours instead of 4 hours by road. She meets with various obstacles like unreliable train services that are either tardy or stop so that officers can talk to their friends, or lacks hotels for her to sleep in (which is illegal in Myanmar).
• She is under police supervision during this time - they are known to be kinder to tourists than to her
• Entering the police or military is the fastest way to promote personal social mobility
• She meets Myo Myint - who moved to Msia for a living - and Daw Myat, a middle-aged woman who she crashes with for the night.
• After reaching Pathein she meets with a local translator and tour guide (Soe Moe) and his friend (Tun - alias) who worked in Myanmar railways.
• She also recounts an anecdote of interviewing Aung Min; who is painted as a promising reformer but was likely every bit as corrupt as all the other ministers during Than Shwe.

Magway
• Took 2 days to reach
• Meets Nay Aung, one of the four journalists in Magway (few hundred k population)
• Also met Olar, his friend
• Phone Maw Shwe treats it like a fiefdom
• Pwintbyu (the town) has Moe Moe —— they talk about how their land was seized without notice, and how the railway isn’t even in use right now
• Also caused massive floods as it functions like an embankment
• They met with the NLD party members who seemed afraid to speak out out of fear of being jailed or killed
• Yaw Su and another village were also affected by 2010s floods (worst in a century). It caused massive flooding and destroyed crops for good by resulting in silt build up over the crops.
• personally, I find it very poignant that the undertaking of this railway not only siphoned money from people’s pockets - it also actively functions as a physical symbol in debilitating peoples’ lives; it has caused environmental degradation that is irreversible.
• Ponnyataung and Kyaw’s train lines appear to have been built for military purposes
• Kap Khan Mung brought them to Gangaw.
• This is where we learn about the Chins who fought along the British but were chased out.
• They went to some abandoned railways and author felt silly focusing on the wrong scope for military oppression with railways.
• Instead looked at military’s investment in railways as having a blighted presence in other ways; such as lining their own pockets and inadvertently causing death through mundane and preventable ways.
• Went to Kalay and met Dustin (friend) who showed her to his headmaster and uncle. It has a large Christian population (70%).

Rakhine
• Than Myint shows author around these various architectural structures from the old Rakhine Kingdoms (3 in total)
• They lobbied and managed to get the railways dismantled instead of being build through these structures
• Hammond then goes onto talk about the Rohingya crisis
• Essentially how Myanmar has subscribed to a flimsy colonial myth that Bangladeshi and Bangladeshi-Muslims never belonged, even though they did form a major component of trading history
• A national imagining that is meant to ‘purge’ themselves of external influences, which inadvertently subscribes to colonial beliefs that these Muslims never belonged and that there is a bigger and brighter Myanmar
• They are separated by chain link fences and people harbour misapprehensions and prejudice against them…
• Aung San Suu Kyi has failed.

Kachin
• 3 days to travel to Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin
• Maran Ja Seng Hkawn is one of the contemporary political leaders who saw an opportunity to build a prosperous and peaceful future by signing several business deals with the government, including a contract to run train services to the north --- change from the inside
• interesting as her father is Maran Brang Seng, who led the Kachin Independence Organisation > 20 years
• author also meets Deepak, a retired train drive who braved many insurgency attacks on the train lines
• this part also delves into the Anglo-Burmese wars and how Crosthwaite, the British Chief Commissioner, conducted campaigns to spur the 'pacification' of Burma
• fighting also took place in Wuntho between Aung Myat (the sawbwa of that area) and the British
• she was protected by Ja Seng Hkwan's orders while on the train
• also met Haw Win > Minn
• Kachin remains a fortress and bastion against the Myanmar regime --- which in itself doesn't have sufficient power to quash insurgent movements

Northern Shan
• en-route to Namtu Station, she disguises herself as an European railway enthusiast
• she is accompanied by the chaperone (Ronnie) and Sai (the driver)
• they visit the mining village of Bawdwin and how the British, followed by the Japanese, seized control of the area to extract resources
• mine was eventually nationalised, but production at the mine fell precipitously as an economic autarchy proved unsustainable
• live news of fighting rolled in - Ronnie was anxious, likely because of his wife
• author observes how sprawling mobile networks and covert social media groups were a means to circulate info that could bypass state media (e.g., New Light of Myanmar) --- they were compared to decentralised silos
• Burmese and Ethnic nationalism both prove to be frightening, with each having a reciprocal effect on violence (you act, I act)
• Asia World is mentioned
• author is asked to leave due to escalation (as earlier mentioned) ---Sai's friend, Yin, brings her out
• from there, she meets Sein Kha, a Wa (ethnic minority group), at a makeshift city for Burmese veterans
• all in all, Myanmar's surrounding mountains remain impenetrable...

Southern Shan
• headed to Yatsauk, went back Inle Lake > accompanied by soldiers, felt invisible walls
• author wanted to head to the east of Taunggyi, a militarised zone, but the 1st section of the railway, to that place, was abandoned
• you also need permission from the Pa-O National Organization to travel on the railways towards Kengtung
• she meets a lot of obstacles in between
• poppies grow across Shan state - Myanmar is the 2nd largest opium producer
• basically it's hard to travel here
• author finds another chance to travel here as she was put on a reporting assignment in this region
• she covered herself with tarpaulins as she is in the backseat of one of the cars/guides > she travels through the various checkpoints into 'the box'
• also participates in a festival in Loikaw city
• explores how development (with reference to the Border Areas Development Programme) - as a concept to the outsiders - rarely aligns with on-the-ground sentiments. she meets Bi Pu and hears her story, and drinks a ton of rice wine while at that
• this region continues to push back against the state's attempts to invade their spaces

Naypyidaw
• they arrive at Myaing Galay cement factory but she's not able to get in --- the officials claim that the railway (in-situ) is not related to the factory
• it was gathered that there was a village (Hla Ka) which was quickly dismantled for the factory
• seems that the cement at this factory was used to prop up the new capital of Myanmar (eponymous sub-section)
• most workers were Karen and spoke in this dialect; they have the Karen National Liberation Army
• author travels to Naypyidaw Railway Station, but it is bereft of life --- desolate and abandoned even
• tons of amenities exist, but author does not sight anyone using them
• she heads to the Defence Services Museum then to an empty restaurant that was once brimming with life
• the empty place, and parachuted nature of the prior officials suggests that Myanmar still retains the same primary function in the global economy: a cheap source of raw materials and labour - little much has changed since colonial times...
• she has an unfruitful interview with David Abel, a retired Burmese general who worked alongside Than Shwe

To sum up....
• I saw there were some reviews pointing out that author had 'othered' the Burmese folks in an attempt to understand them better
• however I do think that her foreign presence played a key role in allowing her to siphon some information that she might've otherwise been denied of - I say this as a fellow Southeast Asian
• I thought this was a compelling, absorbing, and necessary read that weaved the travelogue and history genres with a light deftness

[Prayash Giria]

An excellent read that manages to leverage very niche reportage - new railway lines built by Myanmar’s military junta - to narrate a broader exploration of the political, social, economic, and environmental challenges facing the country. Hammond has both travelled fearlessly and written empathetically, and delivered a book that genuinely makes you want to learn more about the places and people it visits. Some readers might benefit from additional context, though, so I would recommend casual googling on Myanmar to make better sense of the lay of the book.

[Jur]

Super boek. Aan de hand van het spoornetwerk van Myanmar wordt de tragische (recente) geschiedenis geduid. Veel over Myanmar geleerd

[Milla Chaplin Rae]

This book is an absolutely incredible read. I am not one for educational nonfiction books and find most stats and facts very hard to retain, but this is written as a travelogue—weaving personal travel stories around hard-hitting data—and the result is a story I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

The most astonishing thing is the depth and bravery of the research that went into this. Clare travelled alone across 3000 miles of abandoned or contested railway, in areas of Myanmar where she was neither welcome nor safe, to collect the true accounts of those involved with and impacted by Myanmar’s hidden railway network. The way she recounts her experiences, her interactions with the people she met and the barriers she met along the way is both emotional and rational but without being judgemental, and her writing is beautiful.

I recommend everyone to read this book, but especially those of you who want to understand today’s conflict in Myanmar from a historical or human perspective. And I dare you not to lose yourself in the story as a train loses itself in a tunnel.

[Jeremy Mullins]

A powerful but readable story of a journalist who sets off around Myanmar on its old train tracks. She discovers a complex, diverse country with unique histories, cultures and problems around every corner.

While the book dwells on some of the worst British colonial and subsequent military excesses, the good humor of the author’s subjects shine through. Most people are aware of the tragedy of their surroundings in Myanmar, and Hammond takes care to illuminate thoughtful portrayals of all people, great or small.

Highly recommend this book. I read it over a long weekend and could barely put it down. The author has certainly ‘walked the walk’ through her long affiliation with Myanmar and this book should be read widely.

[Laura Faludi]

I loved this book a lot more than even the four stars suggest. It is more like a solid 4.5, and the only reason its not 5, is because I felt like it lost its stride by the last two chapters. The writing is equal parts evocative and analytical, elegantly weaving together an engaging travelogue, a well-researched history of a Myanmar then and now, an impassioned account of widespread violence and a plea for accountability, and most importantly a beautiful testament to the resilience of the people of Myanmar. Despite being dense in information, it is a engrossing read and once you are hooked, the book is difficult to put down. I have connected to it in many ways, having travelled on some of those trains myself and having spent the past years of my life working on and being enraged by the many violations committed by the military. At the same time, the book is accessible to anyone without much prior knowledge of the country, and I honestly cant wait to recommend it to many of my friends asking questions and trying to understand why I am doing what I am doing.

[Tate Geiger]

I came away thinking, huh, it seems Clare is blind to her place as a white/British person in a former British colony. She often talks about colonial-era buildings with glowing adjectives and uses diction that often othered the people she engaged with (particularly in the Rakhine/Rohingya chapter, and she consistently uses the phrase “gang of children” throughout the book). Though she did go into British colonization history a bit, it was always second to the history of the Junta. In part, she features the Junta history more prominently because it’s more immediately relevant to the oral histories she is gathering. Still, there is limited critique of the British atrocities that sparked so much of the Junta mess.

THAT SAID this is not a book about British colonization of Myanmar, it’s a book about Myanmar’s railways. As a book about Myanmar’s railways, it’s about as nuanced and well researched as it could feasibly get.

Despite some of its shortcomings, four stars for journalism into conflicts no one in the West talks about.

[Borys Terlecki]

Mixed feelings, the collection of facts and stories seemed too rushed. Why would someone share any sensitive information with a stranger that would be there for an hour (or maybe less?) while the fact of sharing that information could become a reason for persecution or execution during the next power shift (or maybe the one after that?) Maybe people would open up more or one could learn more if there was a way to spend more time with them and learn some of their languages. There is a reason why some travelers and reporters “of old” spent months or years living in a community to understand them. Okay, most probably this would not be possible due to bureaucracy and I appreciate the little information that was possible to collect under the circumstances…and who knows when a possibility to do such field research would present itself. I guess one could write a separate book about each ethnic group in more peaceful and prosperous times.

[Keenan]

On the Shadow Tracks follows British journalist Clare Hammond on her investigative journey through a recently "opened" Myanmar on the country's thousands of miles of track, exploring the exploitative history of the railways and their continued use in extending military power and subjugating a populace divided along ethnic and religious lines. Gross mismanagement, a callous disregard for human life, and the sadly common reality of resource-rich dictatorships all play out in the country, democratic forces not withstanding.


Hammond is persistent, attentive, and thorough in her documenting of the place and people's circumstances, and the tragedies she writes about are compounded by the obvious goodheartedness and sincerity of those she meets (even those foisted upon her by the watchful state security apparatus). This book is excellent in covering the modern history of the country and exploring corridors of Myanmar shut off from the wider world.

[Hannah]

Having travelled through Myanmar, sometimes by train in the time that this was written, I thought this was a very good book. It was written in a tiny window of opportunity when the future of Myanmar looked good and the people more relaxed and willing to talk. The writing is very accessible for a general reader, and it is genuinely interesting because it is essentially a book about people. The picture of life in Myanmar is vivid and heartbreaking. Clare Hammond is a tenacious and indefatigable author who gets so much out of her interviewees, but then transcribes it well, keeping it very readable. It is a long time since I have read a travel book with such depth. For me this is an important book, which I hope wins some prizes.

[Leilana]

"When I set out to travel into the Ayeyarwady Delta by train, I expected the journey to take a long time. I imagined trains might be late, that I might miss a connecting service, that there would be long delays between stations. But all these imagined scenarios were just versions of the type of difficulties that I'd encountered in the past while traveling on other railways in other parts of the world. Nothing I'd ever experienced had prepared me for what lay ahead. More than anything I've done in Myanmar before or since, the journey into the Delta by train revealed the chasm between the fictional world the Generals were trying to create through their propaganda and the reality of life under their rule."

[Thaths]

Weaves together Colonial history, recent history and politics and economics (and travel) to paint a picture of rail building in Myanmar as a way of giving gifts to cronies, forced subjugation of non-Bamar people, resource extraction, military domination,...

When I visited Myanmar 10+ years ago during the (sadly) brief thaw in the nation's history I took many trains. Some of them (train to Lashio, for example) are familiar to me. And the author's description of the realities of riding the rails (bumpy carriages, upper and lower class coaches, plain clothes milirary people who become your "guardians") is vivid.

My one issue with the book is that I thought it would have a central thesis. It did not. At least I didn't pick up one.

[Jonathan Birch]

This is a stunning book. If you open it knowing as little about Myanmar as I did, you'll be faced with a map of completely unfamiliar places - but by the end you will feel much closer, not just to the cities and the landscape of Myanmar, but also to its ethnically diverse people. Hammond is a deeply knowledgeable and sympathetic guide, a constant source of historical context and revelatory insight. It eventually becomes clear that the book's goal is to present you with a new image of the country: "not a unified Myanmar controlled by the generals, but a complex and diverse landscape of people who constantly undermined them". The book achieves this aim spectacularly and often movingly, upending the way I think about this troubled part of the world.

[Allison]

I really wish I could have had more time to read this because I think reading it slowly affected my understanding to an extent, but I still really enjoyed it. Prior to reading the only things I really knew about Myanmar were things I learned in Global 10 about the Rohingya Genocide and other human rights abuses, so it was extremely informative to learn more about British colonial occupation, the military junta, and the lives of ordinary people through the dilapidated railway system. As the author is a journalist, the language was very accessible and filled with vivid descriptions, which was a nice break from the many historians and political scientists whose work I have to read this semester.

[Madeleine Mills-Craig]

The book was a wonderful deep dive into the history and state of Myanmar. There was so much I didn't know that I didn't even realize I didn't know. I think the best lesson I've gained from the book is how the human spirit persists, even with the odds stacked against thee. The author herself displays bravery and courage and the willingness to dig for the truth. She acknowledges her own privilege which thus forces us the reader to reflect on our privileges as well. It's easy to imagine myself as a person raised in Myanmar and to see their struggle as one that any person could be in. It's an excellent book, Claire does a stellar job of making a dense historical and journalistic piece more comprehensible. 3.5 stars.

[thearcher89]

Because of the very nature of the topic, it can be repetitive: the author goes to a state of Burma, talks to her fixers and locals, is followed by government informants, and discovers shocking human rights abuses.

But within this framework, Hammond managed to mine diverse issues: land rights in one area, racial tensions in another, the limits of state power in another, corvee labor throughout the country. She interviews two government ministers responsible for them, and picks up a lot of small nuances about the country (e.g. taboo around asking how long a journey would last). I would have liked a little bit more of history (considering the extensive bibliography she had) but the book is a journalistic reportage at its best.

[Ruth]

The author traces the divided loyalties and conflicts in the country by means of her travel through Myanmar near and sometimes on its dilapidated railways. I felt put off by the idea at first but it turned out to be fascinating and I did enjoy the book. You don't need to be an expert on gauge or know anything about trains to see what they represent in this book - for some, endless broken promises and for others, a vision of the future. Her writing had a gentle touch as she describes the people who she met along the way but she doesn't shy away from the harsh realities of people's lives in Myanmar.

[Own Timis]

I like trains, I like history, I like travelogues and I like learning more about repressive regimes, so this book was perfect for me.

If you'd ask me about my knowledge of Myanmarese railways prior to reading this book, I'd have probably made an educated guess that they had their foundations in colonial the colonial era but had been expanded and used by the junta in more recent years. So it opened my eyes to a world I knew little about. No real surprises but good to learn more.

4*s as I found the author's sentence structure and prose annoying.

[Stephen King]

I bought this on a whim on a visit to Stanfords (travel) bookshop in London. This was a surprising and welcome purchase. I know Myanmar reasonably well so I wasn’t expecting to learn a great deal new but this immaculately and bravely researched book served up lots of new information. Railways, the backbone of British colonialism were adapted and built upon by Myanmar’s brutal army with new lines built by forced labour to supply the army as it fought the ethic armed organisations. Clare Hammond writes sparingly and passionately and sheds new light on the continued tragedy in the country.

[Μίλτος Τρ.]

Ένα υπέροχο και μαύρο οδοιπορικό σε μία από τις πιο fucked up χώρες του κόσμου - που πρόσφατα χτυπήθηκε από μεγάλο σεισμό. Όλη η ιστορία της Μιανμάρ μέσα από ένα ταξίδι με τρένο σε κάθε γωνιά της. Μια χώρα καταραμένη και μαζί μαγική και μια μαύρη ιστορία που χάνεται γιατί η ιστορία γράφεται από τους νικητές. Must read.

[Gina]

A riveting and revealing exploration of the Burmese Junta's national railway. Seeking to unify the border states with central Myanmar through a railway network, they further alienated indiginous populations by razing their villages and forcing local populations to work, unpaid, on building the tracks.

[Megz]

I traveled to Myanmar in 2013, and it remains one of my favourite, yet least understood, countries. Myanmar had just recently reopened to tourists, and as much as I tried to educate myself (at the age of 23), Myanmar remained an enigma throughout my time there, and since. I grab any book about the country I can find, so reading On the Shadow Tracks was non-negotiable.

With the clarity of a good journalist, and the descriptiveness of a mindful traveler, this is a travelogue as much as a probe into the complex history of Myanmar: not just the military occupation the world focuses on, but also the colonial history that started it.

I've never been a railway enthusiast (although my toddler is obsessed with trains), so that was by no means a draw card to read this, but I admit, my knowledge of, and interest in, railways has expanded significantly after this read.

Aside: I would have enjoyed On the Shadow Tracks more if parts of the afterword/author's notes were a FOREWORD instead. There was a lot of visceral, important insight that came out there, that would have enlightened my reading experience even more.

Thank you to Penguin Press UK and Netgalley for providing this eARC.

[Ingeborg Moa]

An exceptionally good book!

[Srikantha Robinson]

DNF. Interesting but I couldn’t get into it.

[Bee Evans]

10/10. I loved travelling Myanmar by train (in 2018) but this exposed the darker side of the railways, and the breadth and complexity of the beautiful country.