How much time do you have?

The only place that isn't worth going to in July is Ngapali. In fact, most hotels and resorts are closed at that time of the year.

Frankly, if you want to stay at higher end places, I'd suggest you book as much as you can ahead of time. July is low season, but given the recent surge in tourism in Burma, I'd want some reservations ahead of time. Work with an agent in Yangon, and they can make or revise reservations for you as needed.

You will probably want to follow the direction of the morning flights, fly to HeHo (Inle Lake) first and spend three full days there. You will want one full day for a trip to the southern lake, Sankar. You'll want another full day for Inle including InDien. A third days allows for a day trip to Kakku and/or the Pindaya caves.

Next, fly to Bagan and spend three full days there. For me, I wanted to be in Bagan visiting temples as much time as possible, but some people prefer to take a day to visit Mt. Popa.

Then finish with a few days in Yangon.

Decide whether you want to visit Mandaly (primarily for the ancient cities).

You might find my first trip report to be helpful - note that much has changed in terms of money since then - click on my name and see both of my Burma reports.

thanks kathie, we have not planned on visiting mandalay (it does not really float our boat by the sound of it!)
we have an unlimited time to spend in myanmar but we do tend to move on pretty quickly, ideally 2-3 days unless we are relaxing on a beach. im off to read your reports.

You may have an unlimited amount of time to spend in Myanmar, but tourist visas are only issued for 28 days. Whe I was there in mid December, Ngapali had been closed to tourists. I haven't checked recently, but you might want to see what its status is now--which doesn't mean much, of course, for July.

thanks 520, 28 days will be more than enough.
excuse my ignorance but getting to inle lake and bagan, which airports are the closest and how long is the travelling time from airport to inle/bagan.
im sorry if the questions are simple ones but this is the early part of our research.
thanks.

While there were rumors of Ngapali being closed, it has not been. The confusion stems from the fact that flights to the beach area stop in Sittwe, which has been closed for some time. In any case, you won't be going there in July. The airport closest to Inle Lake is HeHo, an hour from the lake.

The closest airport to Bagan is Nyaung U, and it's a 10-15 minute drive to hotels in Old Bagan (which is where you will want to stay).

To make flight reservations, you will need a local agent. You cannot buy domestic tickets online, though there are scam sites that will sell you tickets.

I recommend you buy the Lonely Planet Guide. Yes, the info about changing money is now wrong, and the accommodation prices are a third of what they are now, but it has excellent historic, cultural and logistical info.

thanks kathie,
youve cleared the fog! i kept reading of long taxi rides from airports and i have been trying to avoid them.
now ive got the yangon- heho (inle lake) - nyaungu (bagan)- yangon route in my head i can start thinking about hotels.
i plan on booking our 2 nights in yangon and onward flight to heho then "winging it" having a fixed itinerary has always hindered us in the past. do you consider the booking of flights and hotels at 24 hours notice relatively easy?
youve been great, thanks.

If you were going to Burma this month, I'd say you were already too late to book. In low season, I would hope it wouldn't be a problem, but let me forewarn you that with the surge in tourism, everyone has been surprised. Suddenly, high season is longer - used to be Dec-Jan, now is Nov-through Feb at least. So be prepared. You will get the best prices on hotel from a local agent (I know, I was surprised, too). If you are going to wing it, I'd form a relationship with a local agent, have them book your first nights in Yangon and your flight to HeHo, then contact them a couple of days in advance for your next booking. The agent will watch out for you on flights, and if one is cancelled, get you rescheduled, etc.

kathie, many thanks.
now, reliable agent?

Kathie,

It may perhaps have been the closing of the Sittwe airport, but a fellow passenger on the Pandaw cruise had been booked at a hotel in Ngapali well after the closingof the Sittwe airport, but had her trip cancelled by her agent on December 15th because the area had been closed to tourists.

She was being rerouted to another beach area (name escapes me right now) but I see reviews on TA from January,, so assume Ngapali is reopened.

Interesting, 520. I was reading reports from people in Ngapali all through Dec. Only the northern area of Rahkine state, including Sittwe and Mrauk U, was actually closed to foreigners. But there were concerns about whether foreigners would be allowed to fly through Sittwe on the way to Ngapali. It sounds like the person's travel agent decided to play it safe and cancelled that segment of the trip.

Kathie, while we were on the Irrawaddie, we were told that we wouldn't be allowed to go to one of our destinations because a large demonstration was scheduled by about 3000 monks the net day to protest the expansion of the copper mines. A "settlement" was reached with the government the next day and the demonstration was cancelled.

Of course the fighting goes on in Kachin State, and that entire area continues to be closed to tourists, and last January when I first started working with Din at Santa Maria, we hadn't yet decided on taking the Pandaw cruise but were interested in going to the northern part of the country. Din told me at that time that we wouldn't be able to go there because of the conflicts.

Not sure why the travel agent waited until the last minute to cancel, if that was the case...we did meet others who had spent time in Ngapali in mid-November and had no difficulties at all.

Well, the situation was so uncertain. There were frequent rumors that SIttwe/Mrauk U were going to be re-opened, then there would be another incident. I read accounts from a number of people who flew to Sittwe, then were stuck because no boat would take them to Mrauk U. The situation was very volatile. Lots of people didn't re-arrange their itineraries in the hope they would be allowed to go to Mrauk U. So who knows why the agent managed it as they did, but I expect they were doing the best they could.

Sometimes we forget that it is actually easier to get info on what is going on inside Burma from our vantage point than it is to get info in Burma on what is going on elsewhere in the country. While news censorship is officially over, the governments still "manages" what information (especially about internal conflicts) gets published. Agents were having trouble getting info on the situation in Mrauk U even from the government!

To some degree, yes, although while we were there we were quite surprised about how open the reporting seemed to be in the English-language paper. I rarely see any reporting in U.S. papers (NYTimes, Washington Post). Nonetheless, since we returned, I've learned of the number of serious conflicts that were going on in January--many on a daily basis. The northern part of the country is quite unstable, and the junta seems to be quite in control with the gov't taking little action to stop military action.

You are quite right that the reporting in the US is pretty minimal. The BBC has better coverage, and there are websites like irrawaddy.org that publish up to date info.

Yes, BBC can be better, but, again, unless there's a very significant occurrence they don't report on military activity in Burma w/any regularity. We listen to BBC daily--don't know the irrawaddy.org web site, but have been given another one <http://www.freeburmarangers.org> that has very current information on what's going on in the north.