Len Sellwood sent these photographs of Burma from when he was surveying there.
Len sent a few notes with the photographs:
“The Burmese village pictured – in the dry season these were rice farmers, in the Monsoon they were fishermen – note the houses are built on stilts. The palms are toddy palms, from which they get palm wine. One of my labourers could spot them miles away and always edged over to them ..”
“At the camp in Myo Chaung one of the soldiers caught a King Cobra and cut off its head as it was going into a hole. Somewhere I photographed it against a levelling staff – it was over 14 ft without the head or hood. Dennis Shearing skinned, salted and wrapped it up. Not sure if he still has it!!”
“Leveling through cane fields was very hot and very dirty.”
“The village (river) of Myo Chaung we were supposed to survey for a Dam site, the evening before a full company of soldiers went out to secure the area (usual practice). In less than an hour a tremendous fire fight erupted lasting some time with rifle, machine gun and mortar fire. We deliberated for a couple of days and were in contact with FSK via HF radio, our decision was to level up the wider part of the river but not to go too deep into the jungle – we also settled on an extra £1 a day danger money. Google Earth now shows a dam along the river.”
“The Reclining Buddha is the largest reclining Buddha in the world, we were told.”
“Burmese New Year (Water Festival) in Rangoon was great fun, as can be seen by the joy on people’s faces, wash away the sins of the old year and start the new one clean!”
