How Much Money to Take to Burma
Jan 25th, 2012, 08:11 PM
#22
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I will hopefully post my report in the next couple of days with a link to my blog.
I prepaid all my hotels, my flights, the boat trip to Bagan from Mandalay and two day trips.
We went for 18 nights in total. I spent an additonal $700 in 18 days. I took $1000 to be on the safe side.
We usually only bought one meal a day as we found that the breakfast included with our hotel lasted us till the early afternoon and then we only ate once.
Meals however were generally inexpensive. I am a vegetarian and dont drink alcohol, but averaged around $10 for a good meal.
the transportation costs were the big one. Gas is so expensive that the taxis were more than we expected and the airports are a long way from where you will be staying. Kathie gave a lot of current details above on transfer costs.
We took too many smaller USD bills. We only needed $5 bills and a few $1 bills really. The rest in $100 and $50. You dont want to change more than you need, but you can always change it back at the airports if you have too much when you leave. We did find that three times at the airports however the exchange was closed for what ever reason there was no one there.
As Kathie and others have said, the Goverment fees are all in USD,($5) the PaO guide fees are all in USD ($10) and a few other entrance fees. You do get a better exchange rate in Yangon and you do get a better rate fo $100 bills compared to smaller bills, but unless you are changing thousands of dollars it really does not amount to that much of a difference.
Take more than you need, you can always bring it home if you have Euros. It was very safe to walk around with large amounts of cash in my opinion, although we had it in a money belt.
THe Burmese walk around with huges wads of cash all the time, and you see it just lying on the counters in stores.
I prepaid all my hotels, my flights, the boat trip to Bagan from Mandalay and two day trips.
We went for 18 nights in total. I spent an additonal $700 in 18 days. I took $1000 to be on the safe side.
We usually only bought one meal a day as we found that the breakfast included with our hotel lasted us till the early afternoon and then we only ate once.
Meals however were generally inexpensive. I am a vegetarian and dont drink alcohol, but averaged around $10 for a good meal.
the transportation costs were the big one. Gas is so expensive that the taxis were more than we expected and the airports are a long way from where you will be staying. Kathie gave a lot of current details above on transfer costs.
We took too many smaller USD bills. We only needed $5 bills and a few $1 bills really. The rest in $100 and $50. You dont want to change more than you need, but you can always change it back at the airports if you have too much when you leave. We did find that three times at the airports however the exchange was closed for what ever reason there was no one there.
As Kathie and others have said, the Goverment fees are all in USD,($5) the PaO guide fees are all in USD ($10) and a few other entrance fees. You do get a better exchange rate in Yangon and you do get a better rate fo $100 bills compared to smaller bills, but unless you are changing thousands of dollars it really does not amount to that much of a difference.
Take more than you need, you can always bring it home if you have Euros. It was very safe to walk around with large amounts of cash in my opinion, although we had it in a money belt.
THe Burmese walk around with huges wads of cash all the time, and you see it just lying on the counters in stores.
Jan 25th, 2012, 11:57 PM
#23
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Live42day, thank you for getting back with this info - really useful. We've decided to take $1200 to be on the safe side.
I look forward to reading your trip report before we leave on Wednesday!
I look forward to reading your trip report before we leave on Wednesday!
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