Since my last trip to Myanmar in 2011, when I had taken a great trip on the Ayeyarwady River, I had been curious about exploring the Chindwin River. This is a smaller river in the northwest of the country, and is actually a tributary of the Ayeyarwady River.

 In addition to the challenges of navigating the river in the dry season due to low water levels, I had read that there were a lot of permits and red tape for tourists to deal with. Fortunately I found that that has changed and many restrictions have been lifted.

 I finally made it here, but didn’t have enough time for a full-fledged expedition. I decided to take a couple of days to at least do a small segment of the route to get the flavor. After a full day on the boat, I arrived in Kalewa just after sunset.

 When I woke up the next morning I went for a short walk down the hill to the waterfront. It was a pleasant sight with boats, the river, and mountains in the background. However, there was some garbage on the beach and a few distracting elements. I composed to try to eliminate some of these things, but felt that something was missing. In post-production I was playing around with a few things, and really liked this watercolor effect I was able to achieve using Topaz Simplify.