Defiled on the Ayeyarwaddy: One Woman's Mid-Life Travel Adventures on Myanmar's Great River

Defiled on the Ayeyarwaddy is the story of a woman who spent several years in Myanmar’s Insein Prison for political dissent and pursued a lifelong dream when she was released from her cell. In her late fifties and unaccompanied, Ma Thanegi traveled the 1300 miles of the Ayeyarwaddy River, an odyssey that spanned several years and involved negotiating a couple of perilous river gorges (defiles, on the Ayeyarwaddy, aka Irrawaddy). This is a lady who is never without her sense of humor—or her trusty tube of red lipstick—or her determination to follow her dreams. Author of The Native Tourist and many books on the history and culture of Myanamar, Ma Thanegi is also a visual artist whose paintings have been exhibited in and out of Yangon. She lives in Yangon’s Chinatown neighborhood and travels throughout her country, and beyond its borders, every chance she gets. * * * Here’s what a few of Ma Thanegi’s readers have to say about Defiled on the Ayeyarwaddy:. “There are few South East Asian authors in the English medium these days that can match Ma Thanegi for style, verve, or humour.” Professor Robert H. Taylor, City University of Hong Kong “Congenitally curious with insatiable wanderlust, the author, Ma Thanegi captures the reader's imagination with her descriptions of people and places. She paints a vivid and colorful picture of festivals and foods of Burma in delicious detail.” Cleo Appleton, Live to Eat Group “As far as I know, Ma Thanegi’s travel books are the only ones written by a Burmese who not only knows her country very well but also knows what we foreigners don't know or understand about her country.” Isabelle Bouan, translator