3 weeks in Myanmar-What an adventure!

Old Feb 11th, 2012, 12:15 PM
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3 weeks in Myanmar-What an adventure!

I returned from Myanmar several days ago after 32 hours on several planes, but wanted to get this TR started between doing loads of laundry, opening mail, and paying bills. Too bad those everday things get in the way of TRS. Bottom line is that the trip was wonderful. It was everything we hoped it would be, in no small part due to the help received from Fodorites who had previously been to Myanmar. One of our friends called us "pioneer tourists" for going to Myanmar, but the true pioneers are the Fodorites that paved the way for us. Thanks so much for your input and advice. You know who you are.

I started planning this trip about a year ago, reading Lonely Planet, asking for advice on this forum, and trying to figure out what would be an ideal trip for me and my DH. We are both retired, so time was not the issue, except that we did not want to make this trip longer than our usual trips- about 2 to 3 weeks. It was decided that we would visit Yangon, Mandalay, Bagan, Inle Lake, and Mrauk U over the course of three weeks.

I tried to get frequent flier seats on the many airlines where we have miles, and was finally successful using Continental miles. I was short 30,000 miles for the two tickets and had to add $525 per ticket to buy additional miles plus pay $107 in taxes per ticket. This was a small price to pay for a ticket that priced out at $1900 on the Continental website. We flew BOS to LHR on Virgin Atlantic. and LHR to BKK to RGN on Thai Airways. The leg room in economy on all sectors was fine. The food on VA was good, but surprisingly it was terrible on the LHR to BKK leg on Thai. I chalked that up to the food having been prepared in England, but that is just a guess. In any case, we totally skipped that meal.

As an aside, we had a little personal drama on the flight from BOS to LHR. My DH had been ill with a virus for 2 weeks prior to our trip, but seemed to be getting better in fits and starts over the course of 2 weeks. On the plane I looked over at him and he was white as a ghost and felt cold and clammy to my touch. His eyes were closed and he was not very responsive to my questions. At that point I told him that when the plane landed in London we were aborting the trip and were returning to BOS. I was not about toi wind up with an ill husband in Myanmar with its minimal healthcare. He convinced me that we should continue on to Bangkok, where there is good healthcare, and if necessary we would go to Bumengrad Hospital. I was not happy about this decision, but decided to go along with it, as he said he thought he was beginning to feel slightly better. It was a very uncomfortable couple of hours for me, but long story short, he did get better. He chalked up this episode to a sudden drop in blood pressure due partially to dehydration and a bad mix of his blood pressure medication with the red wine which he consumed on the flight.. Nonetheless, we did wind up having to go to a hospital in Myanmar for a different reason.

When we arrived in Yangon, my husband realized he had forgotten to pack enough of one of his blood pressure meds. He had enough for a few days, but not enough to last for our entire trip. I was too exhausted from the flight and the drama on the plane to try to figure out what to do, at that point. What I needed was sleep. So we napped for about 4 hours and when we awoke I decided we needed to buy some bottled water. I had read about a restaurant close by to the hotel, so we walked about 2 minutes to the resataurant and walked in. It was about 4PM and the restaurant's only customers were a man and woman sitting at a table having tea. As I glanced at them, I spotted a stethoscope around the man's neck, and the table was covered with boxes of drug samples. Serendipity-a doctor, and double serendipity, he spoke English. My husband explained to him that he had forgotten to pack one of his meds. The doctor said we could easily get them at a certain hospital which was a short taxi ride away. He wrote down the name of the hospital for us and off we went to the hospital.

We arrived at the very busyhospital and were directed by the receptionist at the front desk to the pharmacy. DH spoke to the pharmacist, lovely young woman who spoke English very well. We got his needed blood pressure medicine, paid the equivalent of $2 for a 20 day supply of the generic version (manufactured in Mumbai with a good expiration date) and taxied back to our hotel. The meds evidently worked as his blood pressure on our return to the states was fine. Either that or the trip was so relaxing that he didn't need the ersatz meds. lol.
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Old Feb 11th, 2012, 01:34 PM
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We were away from Jan. 14 until Feb 6, spending a total of 20 nights in Myanmar. The weather was fabulous, with no rain and high temperatures mostly in the mid 80s during the daytime. We had Zaw at Santa Maria travel agency make the hotel and plane reservations, as well as arrange some transfers and car trips. He is very nice to work with, but this required a lot of time spent emailing back and forth until our itinerary was finalized. At that point, one third of the trip cost was wired to a friend of his in Thailand. The balance was payable on arrival in crisp, new unmarked $100 bills. I must say I felt somewhat anxious about carrying thousands of dollars on my person into the country, but since everyone else seemed to have done it without getting robbed, I bit the bullet, relaxed and did it.

Our itinerary included the following-2 nights at the Summit Parkview in Yangon, basically to recover from jet lag and see Shwedegon Pagoda, 3 nights at the Mandalay City Hotel in Mandalay, 4 nights at the Hotel at Tharbar Gate in Bagan, 1 night at the Hill Top Inn in Kalaw, 4 nights at the Paramount Inle Resort in Inle Lake, 1 night at the Seasons of Yangon Hotel at the airport (arrived at the hotel at 6:15PM and left the next morning at 11am), 3 nights at the Narawat Hotel in Mrauk U, and 2 nights at the Summit Parkview Hotel in Yangon. All of the hotels except the Hotel at Tharbar Gate were suggested by Zaw according to my requirements of 3-4 star hotels with 1-good location 2-good airconditioning 3-good beds and 4-clean. I checked his recommendations on Trip Advisor and all seemed ok except for his recommendation for Bagan which I switched to the Hotel at Tharbar Gate. For the most part, most of the hotels met my requirements.

We left Boston at 7:40 PM and arrived in Yangon at 6:15 AM two days later. We quickly went through immigration, changed dollars into kyats at the rate of 815 kyats to the dollar, went to the taxi stand in the terminal and paid 8000 kyats or $10 US for a taxi to the Summit Parkview Hotel. Tip: There is no need to pay 3 times this amount to a travel agent for this transfer. It is very easy and straightforward to arrange on your own at the airport.
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Old Feb 11th, 2012, 01:53 PM
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Well, please keep going. You have wetted my appetite...
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Old Feb 11th, 2012, 02:01 PM
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We arrived at the Summit Parkview at about 11am, jet lagged and tired. They had a room available on a lower floor, but I wanted a room on a high floor to minimize street noise. We opted to wait until a room on a high floor was made up which took until 1PM. I am very glad we waited. We were shown to a corner room on the fifth floor with a direct pagoda view of Schwedegon pagoda. This was a deluxe room for which we paid a few dollars more than a regular room. It was well worth it. The room was very large, freshly painted, newish bedspreads and drapes, and lovely sheets. It was very clean, and had the usual amenities, plus some extras, in the bathroom. The bathroom itself seemed old and in need of updating, but there was always plenty of hot water. The air conditioning worked well.

After napping for a few hours, and taxiing to the hospital for my husbands meds, we returned to the hotel to freshen up. We walked 2 minutes from the hotel to Singapore's Kitchen Restaurant, an excellent restaurant featuring Chinese and Singapore type food. We sat outside (There is indoor seating as well) and had a very enjoyable meal. The food was high quality and was seasoned well. the service was excellent. The prices were high by Myanmar standards-the equivalent of about $30 for 1 dish of stir fried vegtables, two meat dishes, rice and 1 beer. The check was payable in kyats. The food was so good that we returned here all of the nights we stayed at the Summit Parkview. On one of the nights we wanted dessert, so we crossed the street to My Garden Restaurant and had chocolate cake and black forest cake. The desserts were very good, and definately better than sticky rice.

We went to bed after taking a Melatonin (Thanks for that tip Kathy) looking forward to our first day of sightseeing tomorrow.
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Old Feb 11th, 2012, 02:14 PM
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Kathie-Sorry about the spelling error of your name. Guess I need to pay more attention to what I type.
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Old Feb 11th, 2012, 03:02 PM
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You are forgiven for the misspelling, Shelly, you are still in a time zone somewhere between Yangon and the US.

Loving the beginning of your report, Shelly, and looking forward to more. You and your husband braved the Myanmar medical system and came through it great!
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Old Feb 11th, 2012, 04:08 PM
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Great report and keep it coming!
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Old Feb 12th, 2012, 10:15 AM
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We awoke early to start our first day of sightseeing in Yangon. We had a a very good buffet breakfast at the hotel, which included Asian and western dishes as well as an omlette station. The food was good and well presented. The service was spotty, but always with a smile.

After breakfast we told the doorman what our itinerary would be for the day and asked him for approximate taxi prices from one place to the next, so we had a ballpark figure of what the taxi fare should be. The hotel is located in the green, as in treed, section of Yangon, so a taxi is necessary to get to most places except for Shwedegon Pagoda which is within walking distance. Most taxi fares were in the 2-3000 kyat range, so it is very reasonable to get just about anywhere in Yangon. The taxis seemed to be much improved from the ones I had read about-no doors falling off and windows that worked for the most part.

Our first stop was Boatung Paya, which features one of Buddah's hairs. As this was the first Paya we visited, we spent a good hour here investigating the complex. We met and spoke to a trustee of the Paya who when he learned we were from America was very interested in talking politics, both American and Burmese , with us. In addition, he gave us his philosophical take on Buddism and yoga which we found very intersting.

After visiting the Paya, we walked a few minutes down a road to the river where we observed ferry boats crossing the river, bigger boats being loaded with goods for long voyages and people selling food at stalls along the riverfront. As it was getting hot, we did not spend too much time here.

We took a taxi to the Strand Hotel, which I had wanted to see. We went through the gift shop, which had some beautiful items for sale, viewed the lobby, and used their restroom. After seeing only these areas, I was happy with our choice of the Summit Parkview Hotel, as it is in a quieter area, which for us was a plus.

From the Strand we did a walking tour down Strand Road viewing the old colonial buildings, to Mahabooli Park and through Chinatown. This was not a leisurely stroll as you constantly must be alert for broken pavement, open sewers and a huge amount of traffic. At this point we were hot and tired and would have liked to have gotten a taxi. However, since we could not get one (All that past were filled), we started to walk back to the hotel. We finally were able to get a cab when we were most of the way back to the hotel. We figure we walked several miles, but it did not feel that long since the sights along the way were interesting and we stopped a lot to take photos.

We returned to the hotel at about 2 and rested until 4. I thought about swimming in the large hotel pool, but decided to conserve my energy for our visit to Shwedegon Paya which we were going to visit this afternoon.

We taxied to the Paya at about 4PM and spent 3.5-4 hours there. It truly is an amazing place and I took many photos. We saw it in bright sunlight, in twilight and in the dark. Each of these lighting effects give the paya complex a different appearance which makes for varied, interesting photos. The many small payas and buildings within the complex are outlined and lit with small light bulbs at dark, giving the complex a somewhat Disneyland feel. The Burmese people seemed to enjoy the ambiance as we saw many families with children strolling through and enjoying the Paya after dark.

After taking many photos we returned to the hotel by taxi, had dinner at Singapore's Kitchen and went to sleep as we had a very early flight to Mandalay the next morning.
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Old Feb 12th, 2012, 10:09 PM
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Great Start. Looking forward to more. I too loved the gift shops at the strand Hotel.
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Old Feb 13th, 2012, 05:00 AM
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Looking forward to more.
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Old Feb 13th, 2012, 04:47 PM
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I'm sorry to be impatient, but I can't wait to hear more about your trip!
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Old Feb 14th, 2012, 02:34 AM
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Kathie-Glad to hear that you are interested in my TR, although judging by the lack of comments, it doesn't appear that too many others are . I feel that I owe you big time for the sucess of our trip, so I will get back to the TR as soon as I get some pesky, everyday things out of the way. To the others that have commented, thanks for letting me know that someone other than me is intesested in my adventure.
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Old Feb 14th, 2012, 05:24 AM
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how does a Dr. travel w/o extra meds??
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Old Feb 14th, 2012, 07:21 AM
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Don't forget, Shelly, that for every person who posts a response to your report, there are at least 10 others reading...
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Old Feb 14th, 2012, 08:26 AM
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And when Dogster reads them too that figure is multiplied a thousand times...
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Old Feb 14th, 2012, 08:30 AM
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Lurking here too and enjoying your report. Kathie is right, many more than you know are waiting.........

Aloha!
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Old Feb 14th, 2012, 10:19 AM
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Thanks for the encouragement and positive reinforcement. It's nice to know that someone is reading.

The next city on our itinerary was Mandalay. I purposely put Mandalay second on our itinerary because from my reading I felt it would be the least interesting of the places we would visit, and I did not want to make comparisons in my mind to Bagan and Inle Lake, had we seen those first. Mandalay did turn out to be the least interesting place on our itinerary, but I do not regret spending 3 days there. It gave us an additional view of the social and economic aspects of Myanmar, allowed us a day to explore the ancient cities, gave us an extra few days to get over our jet lag and was not boring in the least. What it was though was dusty, noisy, and crowded.

We had an early wake up call at the Summit Parkview Hotel, and left the hotel at 5:30 for our 7:30 flight. The hotel doorman got us a taxi for 8000 kyats and the dining room gave us a boxed breakfast as we had to leave before the dining room opened for breakfast. The boxed breakfast was horrible, but the thought was nice. I felt bad about missing the buffet breakfast at the hotel, which I thought was very good,but I knew we'd be back for 2 more nights at the end of the trip.

At mandalay airport, Santa Maria arranged for a taxi transfer to our hotel for us. It was $26, and we felt that this was money well spent. The airport is one hour from the city, and we did not see any taxis waiting at the airport. So if you are going to Mandalay, I suggest you make arrangements for an airport pickup in advance of your arrival.

We arrived at the Mandalay City hotel around 11am. I had read that there was a mosque next door to the hotel, so I requested a room on the other side of the building. Bad news though, the hotel was fully booked for the night and our room was on the mosque side. However, they could switch our room to the quiet side the next day, for our next 2 nights. Their offer was speedily accepted.

The Mandalay City Hotel is an oasis in the middle of busy, dusty Mandalay. It is landscaped with greenery, and has a coy pond and a small swimming pool. Also, because of where it is situated, it is quiet....except for the mosque. So for the first day, not only did we hear the call to prayer several times, but we heard students chanting from the Koran, loudly and in unison, for a solid 2 hours, from 6PM to 8PM. After 8, it became relatively quiet and we were able to sleep.

I had nothing special planned for our day of arrival in Mandalay, so after checking into the hotel, we decided to have a leisurely lunch at KO's Kitchen, a Thai restaurant I had read about. I asked the hotel if it was within walking distance and they said it would take us about 15-20 minutes to walk there. Well, it took us about 40 minutes, walking through hot busy streets, crossing heavily trafficked roads, breathing smog,and watching for pot holes and broken pavement. Note to self-do not plan on walking too far in Mandalay.

We got to Ko's Kitchen, hot and tired, but lunch gave us a chance to cool off and regroup. The best part of lunch was the airconditioning. The food was just ok and the service was slow. I decided we would not return there for another meal.

After lunch, we asked the restaurant if they could call us a taxi to take us to Mandalay Hill. Although they did try, they were unable to secure a taxi for us, but did find a trishaw (bicycle taxi) for us at a cost of 2500 kyats. It was great fun for us zipping through the streets on this home made contraption, although it probably wasn't much fun for the poor guy peddling. He left us at the base of Mandalay Hill, where we had the choice of walking up a zillion steps to the top, or paying a guy in a taxi-$8US to take us up wait for us and return us to the bottom. Guess which we chose?

Mandalay Hill was underwelming, and we spent only about 15-20 minutes at the top. On the way down, the driver offered to take us to a few more sights in the area and take us back to our hotel for another $4, a true bargain, to me at least. So he drove us to Sammi Paya and Kathodaw Paya, both in the vicinity of the hill. I enjoyed both and recommend a visit to both. They were similar to each other in appearance but Kathodaw Paya is several hundred years older than Sammi Paya which was built in the early 1900s. Both had many stupas which contained marble slabs inscribed with Buddah's teachings. Kathodaw Paya is termed "the world's largest book" in many guidebooks. Sammi Paya is not as prominently mentioned, but both were interesting to visit.

At that point it was getting late, we were getting tired and we asked to be returned to the hotel. We went to bed early, not having dinner, as we were not hungry after having our late lunch at Ko's Kitchen.

Tomorrow we are being picked up at 8am by a guide and driver for our tour of the ancient cities.
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Old Feb 14th, 2012, 10:56 AM
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Thanks for the next installment. I agree, Mandalay is a hard city to love, still, like you, I was glad for our few days there. The dust and the traffic and heat make walking unpleasant.
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Old Feb 15th, 2012, 04:33 AM
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After a very good buffet breakfast at the hotel, we were picked up promptly by Tony, our guide, and a driver. The hotel said that they would transfer our luggage to our new room, while we were away for the day, so we left our luggage in the room, packed up and ready to be transferred.

Our first two stop of the day were a gold leaf making shop and the Mahamuni Paya, both on the way to the ancient cities. The gold leaf demonstration was short and interesting. The visit to the Paya was informative and eye opening. Men could approach the Mahammuni Buddah to place gold leaf on it, but women could not. So much gold leaf was applied to the body of the Buddah that you could not make out the body parts. Only the face was obvious, as no gold leaf was applied to it.

I opted to skip the "feeding of the monks" at the monastery in Anarapura as I had heard that it is very crowded with often rude and unruly tourists. We drove directly to Sagaing where I had tod Tony i wanted to spend most of the day. This was a good decision and worked out well. The scenery in Saiging was lovely and green, the air was fresh and there was ample opportunity to explore the many payas, the markets and the home workshops which I was interested in.

The first temple we visited was Kaunghmudaw Paya, a round domed paya modelled after the Great Stupa in Sri Lanka. Many years ago the dome was white, but is now covered in gold leaf, and it is visible from Saiging Hill, many miles away. The next temple was the Hsinmyashin Paya, also known as the Elephant Pagoda as there are 2 elephant statues at the entrance and many smaller elephant statues at the base of the paya. We also visited the Umin Thounzen cave temple which was many Buddahs lining the semi circular walls.

We then went to a produce market which I always love visiting, and to a a clay pot making house, where the owner and his daughter demonstrated how they make the pots. The clay comes from a distant riverbank, many miles away, and is dug and transported by the family to their house. I took an interesting photo of the daughter of the owner holding several clay pots on her head and under her arms. We were given a gift of 3 very small stackable clay pots, and we returned the favor by offering a small gift of our own (a few thousand kyats). There was no pressure to buy, just an interesting interaction with a very nice family. We visited some other sites around Sagaing, and then left the area arriving at Amarapura at 3:30.

I opted to skip visiting Inwa because of the bumpy horsecart ride, which seemed like it might not be too good for DH's back. After a brief stop at the monastery which we had skipped in the morning, we spent the rest of our time at U Bein bridge. Tony left us at the bridge and told us to meet hin back at the car whenever we wished. We spent about 3 hours at the bridge.

We walked across the bridge to visit the village and paya on the other side. We walked through a residential area which was interesting. The people were very friendly, smiling and saying "Mingalabar".

We then spent a good amount of time on the bridge taking photos. When I got home, I was surprised at how many photos I took of the beautiful sunset. It was hard to decide what to keep and what to delete.

We left the bridge at about 6:30 and returned to the hotel at 7:30. We tipped Tony and the driver for a job well done and went to our new room to freshen up before dinner. The hotel had transferred our luggage as promised. The new room was smallish, freshly painted, and was very clean as was the previous room. In addition it was quiet.

On the way back to the hotel, Tony recommended a restaurant near our hotel, Mann Chinese Restaurant, which he said was very clean, inexpensive and had good Chinese food. It was where he eats when he is in the area. We walked about 5-10 minutes to the restaurant and entered a huge room filled, actually packed, with locals and a few tourists. This place is more like a pub than a restaurant, as more locals seemed to be drinking than eating. It was nosiy and crowded, but we decided to stay as it was actually an interesting environment to be in.

We ordered several Chinese dishes, which arrived 45 later, after several reminders to the one waiter who seemed to be covering the whole room. The food was good and inexpensive, as Tony had said, and as an added bonus we had a good time watching all the the activity in the very, busy place. All in all a very successful evening.

Incidentally, I would not recommend this as a restaurant to most people unless you can tolerate the kind of environment I have described. However, i would recommend it for an after dinner drink, just to experience Mandalay nightlife.

Tomorrow we head for Mingun
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Old Feb 15th, 2012, 06:24 AM
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Continuing to enjoy your report.
As an aside, it would be nice if more people would chime in. It is often discouraging when you are not sure if you are writing for the sake of writing or if others are enjoying your report.
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