A little help with my Burma plan..

Old Sep 21st, 2014, 11:12 AM
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A little help with my Burma plan..

I'd like some advice for my Burma plan in early December.

our rough plan is to:
Arrive into Yangon and immediately fly to Bagan.
3 nights in Bagan and fly to Heho.
3 nights in Inle and fly to Yangon.
1 night in Yagon and leave.

The issue is that we fly into Yangon from Bangkok, and arrive early in the morning--0830. The daily flights to Bagan all seem to leave early in the morning or later in the evening, so I'm looking at a really long (like 8 hour) "layover" at Yangon upon arriving. I could do a quick tour around Yangon but it seems like wasted time.

Similarly on departure, our flight leaves at 1900, so I have more than a full day in Yangon, again, at the end.

I've thought of taking the first night to stay in Yangon, then flying out of Inle early on the day of our final departure from Yangon--any thoughts?
jannan is offline  
Old Sep 21st, 2014, 11:37 AM
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Are you working with an agent in Yangon? There certainly are morning flights to Bagan and HeHo, I wonder if you are just looking at one airline.

I would do exactly as you propose, and fly out of Yangon to Bagan as soon as possible after your arrival. I think we had about 2 hours from landing in Yangon to flying to our next destination. As you point out, you will have a whole day in Yangon at the end.
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Old Sep 21st, 2014, 12:18 PM
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What's wrong with a few hours in Yangon? There's plenty to do.
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Old Sep 22nd, 2014, 10:50 AM
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I had a similar issue. Almost every single flight to Bagan seemed to leave at 6:30 in the morning and I think the latest was around 2:30. I could not get our arrival any earlier than around 3 (we were coming from Cambodia). In the end, we arrived around 5pm and spent the night at a hotel near the airport, taking the very early flight out the next morning. If you need to do this, the Hotel Myanmar Life was perfectly acceptable and room service food was pretty good.

We did 1 night Yangon (airport hotel), 2 nights Bagan, 3 nights Inle, and 1 night Yangon (plus 1/2 day).

Something else to keep in mind; traffic from the airport into Yangon is horrible. It took us well over an hour. So for your long layover it might not be worth it depending on what time you have to be back to get the flight to Bagan.

As for the return, we enjoyed our 1.5 days in Yangon. We did a couple of walking tours (one for food, one for historical buildings), ate well, and visited Schwedagon Pagoda. Could have easily done more if we'd had more time.

If you don't want much time in Yangon, I'd recommend spending the first day there on arrival and timing your return from Inle so that you don't even leave the airport, just catch your connecting flight home.
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Old Sep 27th, 2014, 04:33 PM
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Kathie,

I am working with Myanmar shalom. The issue is that the morning flights leave before I arrive at 0830, and the next flight do not leave until later that afternoon, 8 hours later.

So I guess my best option is to arrive at Yangon, stay there the first night and take the very early flight out the next morning, then shift everything back one night. If that can be done now.
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Old Sep 27th, 2014, 07:18 PM
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I think you are right, that is the best option is there are no later flights. There certainly were later flights when I was there - 2009 and 2011 - I was there during high season both times. It has been common for there to be limited flights during off-season, which is what I assumed happened for Kristina. But if Myanmar Shalom says there are no later flights, I would believe them.
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Old Sep 28th, 2014, 04:52 AM
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Trying to schedule internal flights in order to connect with international flights on the same day is courting asking for trouble.
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