One question Kathie, you talked about being barefoot Can you wear socks? My husband has a really hard time walking barefoot, actually he has a hard time walking without shoes as he has a foot problem, but socks might be okay.

live42day,

Yes you can wear socks and what we did was to buy the cheapest kind of socks available and throw them away after each use.

Hanuman had told me you could wear socks, and I'd heard it from several other people as well. I never saw anyone wear socks in the temples while I was there. And Hanuman is right - you would want to throw them away after a single use!

live42day, have a wonderful trip to Burma. It is really a special place.

I've found it works welll to bring a few pair of "temple socks", actually thick tennis socks. When I'm done using them, I wash and dry them and give them to a anyone who would have use of them.

You are not allowed to wear socks in the temples, I tried but was told to remove them.

i would point out too that socks on some ground, specifically marble, can be very dangerous....

we often carry temple socks in other places

I think I read in Craigs report that you can not wear socks. Too bad

Clearly, people have had differnt experiences of this in Burma. Hanuman and his family wore temple socks. We didn't see any, didn't try. Nywoman was told no temple socks. See what you experience, live42day.

Kathie - that is a wonderful report. We went to Burma a few years back and did exact same itinerary. Having traveled in several Asian countries, Burma is like no other. Rangoon is jsut stuck in time. Bagan has the most amazing temples. Thanks for bringing back some beautiful memories.

Thank you for a wonderful ,sensible report!!!
Going there in January and will put all your advice to good use...

Enjoy! It's an amazing place.

Kathie if you don't mind I have a couple of questions for you. We are getting together our trip for Burma & I thought I would contact your horse cart driver. I got a reply from him which is great. My questions for you before I reply to him if you don't mind. He is quoting his price in US$ for a day starting from sunrise until sunset with a break in the middle. I will ask him this but I get the impression he is wanting payment in US$ now? I understood you paid in kip? His price is a bit higher than you & others have quoted the amount is not the problem but it is that old problem of is he expecting me to "bargain" him down a little. You & Cheryl seem to have a similar travel pattern to us (we were 10 days in Siem Reap & never bored!) so I suspect if you worked well for you he could be good for us too. He is saying that he is not only a driver but also a guide & to that is good but we don't really want a guide telling us all sorts of things all day long. Do you know what I am getting at. Anyway would appreciate your opinion. We may end up just playing the lottery & seeing who we get when we get there! Thanks J

I don't believe he is asking for payment in US dollars now... that's hard to do to Burma! We found the prices for horsecarts were standard, no variation among the drivers.

He will take either US$ or kyat. If his US dollar price is higher it might just be inflation or it might be the difference in exchange rate. Info from people on Thorntree indicates that the US dollar isn't buying as many kyat as it was when we were there.

While Min Thu did give us lots of information, he isn't a motormouth guide. We had a good amount of quiet time (which we like). He was very responsive to our needs. You may remember that we didn't use a guide at Angkor, but we really enjoyed having Min Thu at Bagan. We had studied Dawn Rooney (and others) before we got to Angkor, so knew a lot about the temples. It's much harder to get good info on the temples at Bagan in advance. Also, some of the very interesting temples are not listed in most guidebooks. He knew where there were incredible frescos to be seen, for instance. We had outlined our must-see temples, but quickly opted to have him choose. We would go back over our list each day and ask him about any we hadn't seen. We opted not to go to any of the far temples, as there were so many temples easily accessible by horsecart, but next time we will ask him to drive us to some of those. His brother is a taxi driver, so he has access to a car.

You certainly can play the lottery when you get there, but if you do, expect that the driver may not know much more than where to get the key for the locked temples.

Let me know if there is anything else I can help with.

Thanks so much for the info Kathie it makes my reply to him more "intellegent"!!! Also excuse my saying the currency is Kip!! Don't know where that came from! So much for my response being intelleigent!!

I am glad to hear he is not a motor mouth you know where we are coming from. But we are happy to have someone to take a lead in showing us things we never knew about. As you say info is hard to come by.

I have chosen to refer to the country as “Burma” as that is the name the Pro-democracy groups in the country prefer.

Kathie this report is excellent. I am really enjoying it. I have wondered about the name of the country for awhile now. Many say the name should be Myanmar because Burma is the name given by colonial rulers. But my Burmese students (many who are here in the USA on refugee status) always correct me when I say Myanmar and call their country Burma.

Min Thu (who is an excellent driver and guide with many useful local contacts) has emailed me to say that, due to current internet restrictions, he can presently more easily be contacted on his mobile no. which is: 09-2043573.

I hadn't been to Pagan in 33 years and like the rest of the Myanmar, it's changed, although in Pagan not necesarily for the worse. My partner and I also found Minthu, the intelligent, gracious, witty and knowledgeable guide/horse cart driver, outside the Hotel at Tharabar Gate entrance, and we couldn't recommend this gentleman enough or more enthusiastically. You will be very fortunate indeed if you can arrange for Minthu to show you around.

The Hotel at Tharabar Gate is very inviting and private and we had arranged to pay via a website when we reserved rooms there from Tokyo, so we didn't have anything to pay other than incidentals. I find that too many foreigners tend to get in the way of the things I came to see or savor, and the solitary negative aspect of this charming hotel is its popularity with group tourists.

We like good Indian food and found a place caled Aroma 2 in town; it's run by an energetic and affable Indian fellow and his family and he makes sure you are taken proper care of, and the food is just wonderful!

Ah, another happy customer for Min Thu! I'm glad to hear you had such a good time.

One of the hi lights of our visit to Bagan was hiring Min Thu, He's wonderful. He was everything we had hope for and more, Contact him ahead of time and he will meet you.We did not use it but he can also arrange airport transportation. [email protected]

I have been a lurker on this website for years - on my work computer where I was able to look but not sign in. So thank you Kathi for invaluable advice on southeast asia over the years.

We are planning a trip to Burma in January - which pretty much mimics this itinerary - though we are adding in a couple days in Mandalay.

I have tried to email [email protected] - and have not gotten a response. It has been a couple days. Is that normal?

I used Santa Maria Travel and found them to be very responsive...thanks for the tip.