Towards the end of the 13th century, around the year 1293, the Venetian explorer and adventurer,

Marco Polo, was traveling through Southeast Asia.

In the region of what is today Myanmar or Burma, Marco Polo had spent much of the last 20

years traveling around the Asian continent in a remarkable series of journeys along the

ancient route known as the Silk Road and recently he had come into the employment of

the Mongol Emperor of China, a man named Kublai Khan.

Impressed by this foreign visitor, the Emperor had appointed Marco Polo an ambassador and

he was now traveling through the forested mountains of southwest China that now stand on the

border of Myanmar.

He passed through these jungle hills thick with bamboo forests and shaded groves and then

down into a wide river valley full of wild animals.

Leaving the province of Khadendan, you enter a vast descent which you travel without

variation for two days and a half, in the course of which no habitations are to be found.

You then reach a spacious plain.

Beyond this, in a southerly direction, towards the confines of India lies the city of Myanmar.

The journey occupies 15 days through a country much depopulated and forests abounding with

elephants, rhinoceros and other wild beasts, where there is not the appearance of any

habitation.

In this country were found many elephants, large and handsome wild oxen, with stags,

valedere and other animals in great abundance.

It was a city that despite all he'd seen on his travels still stood out to him for its

size and magnificence.

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