lery

After spending 2 days in Yangon (I know many fodorites do not like the city, but we have to know it), we are flying to Bagan. We'll have another 3 full days in Bagan. We're afraid it will be too much. On the other hand, to take another plane to visit another place, it may be a bit tiring after visiting Bangkok, Siem Reap, Yangon, Bagan, an then Anantara. We are the types of travellers who like to stay longer in each place to try to "feel"it.
But if you have any comments/suggestions, they will be highly appeciated.
THANKS again!!!!

Craig

lery - we had 3 full days in Bagan. This includes our arrival day because our flight arrived at about 8:30 AM. We pretty much "did" Bagan in two days. On the third day, we drove to Salay and Mt. Popa. In retrospect, we enjoyed having the extra day but would have preferred just relaxing at our hotel rather than doing the day trip, which was not that great. In terms of getting a feel for Bagan, the 3rd day actually helped as we were able to attend a Buddhist procession in Old Bagan prior to setting off on our trip. It was helpful that we had a guide who knew about it otherwise we would have missed out.

lery

Craig, I've read your report. It's brilliant! Do you think the rate you paid for Tha Aureum Hotel was worth it? We intend to stay at this hotel, but they have not answered my email yet. The other 2 options are The Hotel @ Tharabar Gate (3 stars), and Thripytsaya Hotel Sakura (4 stars). Did you happen to visit one of these hotels?
What I did not understand about Bagan is : is there a village or there are just the ruins and temples?
Thank you for answering all my questions, you've helped me a lot!!!

Craig

Bagan is an "Archeological Zone" that consists of a number of small villages and many very old temples. We reserved the Aureum through our Yangon travel agent and the one e-mail I sent to the Aureum was not answered. We had a huge villa that cost $235/nt including taxes and breakfast - a great deal, even for SE Asia. We could have stayed in a smaller unit for $50/nt less.

The only other hotel I saw was the Bagan Golf Resort which was nice from the outside.

glorialf

It depends on how much time you have and what your interests are. Personally two nights and one full day was more than enough for me. On the other hand 3-4 days in Inle Lake seems to short. But I am much more interested at this point in my life in connecting with people than being in archeological zones. If I were you and were going to Bangkok, Siem Reap and Yangon -- I'd head to Inle Lake for your three days. It will be totally unlike any other place you are visiting.

keldar

Hi Lery:

We have, like Craig, been in Myanmar recently. We had just two full days in Bagan and felt it was fine for seeing lots of temples which is usually the main focus of the city. We took the ferry from Mandalay to Bagan and arrived about 5:30pm. The next day was a full day of touring the archeological zone visiting 12 or 13 temples. We also fit in a visit to a lacquerware factory and a mid day lunch and rest stop. The next day we declined the offer of our tour guide to visit more temples or drive to Mt. Popa as we were frankly exhausted. We instead relaxed around the pool at a hotel that was not our own. We stayed at the Aye Yar Riverview and I probably wouldn't recommend it, but we thought the Thande was quite nice. The Hotel @ Tharabar is close to the Aye Yar and the Sarabah Restaurants are right there. I don't know about the hotel facilities unfortunately.
So if it was me to do it again we would probably either skip Bagan altogether or keep the visit to two days maximum in order to spend more time in Kalaw for a trek or at Inle Lake.
You'll love Myanmar, I am sure of it.
Enjoy,

NLspirit

I've been having difficulty for several days logging in to post a reply .... frustrating ... however registering in other parts of the site is okay. But hey .. voila! I'm in! I've been reading several posts re Myanmar .. many thanks ...especially to Craig and Keldar.... and have found all your comments quite helpful. Craig, I did hear from Santa Maria afterwards. I've also heard from Diethelm and Exotissimo. Santa Maria seems very nice to work with .... great detail in each response and very flexible in their approach. I'm in the process of designing an itinerary. Exotissimo says we have to include Mandalay in our itinerary!? While we are mildly interested in temples and ruins our primary interests are people and the countryside. We're thinking of spending 1 day in Yangon, 2 days in Bagan, 1 day in Kalaw, 4 days in Inle lake and 1 day returning to Yangon to catch a flight to Dalat. Can anyone comment on how steep the trek in Kalaw is? Having a knee problem means steep declines may be difficult. Many thanks! Any comments/suggestions will be very much appreciated. I just hope I get to log in again.