MmePerdu

I agree with Kathie, Mandalay was my least favorite stop on the trip last fall. I loved the Marionette Theatre but it wasn't enough to make me love the city, especially compared to the other stops.

chris45ny

confused20s-I agree with the others that if you have to choose, drop Mandalay. You really need at least 3 nights in a destination IMO to really make it worthwhile. It's smart to travel to Myanmar now as I think prices are going to continue to rise until the infrastructure catches up with the numbers of tourists. In just the past year some places have doubled or more their prices but there are still bargains to be had such as Motherland Inn 2.

Kathie-I hope you're right about Myanmar's WOW factor as it has been a royal pain to get pristine money for the trip. The new $100 bills are out as of this week and I've managed to get some but not near enough to the amount I need.
I also enjoyed your reports and the great pictures from Cheryl. Because of your reports I've booked Minthu for 3 days and we hope to do BOB on 2/15-fingers crossed for good weather!

Kathie

The regulation about pristine bills has changed, but don't expect anything but pristine money to be accepted outside of Yangon and Mandalay. There are also working ATMs that accept foreign cards now, but the local charges are high. US$100 bills are still king.

I hope you have a wonderful time with MinThu - we did. I wish you luck on BoB, as we were cancelled twice on our first trip and didn't bother to schedule on our second trip (as you probably remember).