Notes from Burma
 

We are now in Mandalay, having flown to Yangon and catching the next flight to Mandalay. We are settled in at the Rupar Mandalr, a lovely place. Located just outside of Mandalay, it has just 16 rooms..The rooms are spacious and very attractive with teak floors and walls - oh, and ceilings, too I notice.

I was actually able to access my aol mail, so there are fewer internet blockages than two years ago.

We have free wireless intenet here at the hotel, but it is glacially slow.

Tomorrow we are visiting the ancient cities.

I will post as I am able.

Hi Kathie,

Is the GM of the Rupar a Thai woman? Glad you like the hotel and I hope that they still have evening classical dances for the guess.

I see Hilary Clinton will be joining you. Kindly say hi to her for me!

Yes, Hillary will be in Myanmar next month - the first visit by a US Secretary of State in more than 50 years.

we that is the end of myanmar...

well

Glad to hear there is internet in Burma. Hope to hear about your travels as you go. Is the weather warm?

Just catching up on the internet and hoping you and Cheryl are doing fine. In know C will take lots of pics and hope this trip will be the one you dreamed of as a child. Linda sends her love and kisses.

Aloha!

These are exciting times in Burma. ASSK and the NLD have agreed to rejoin politics. The changes just since our trip two years ago are pretty amazing.

The GM here is, I believe, A Mynamar man, though the person in charge of the front office is a woman. Yes, they do still have musical/classical dance/puppet shows each evening. The rooms, as I mentioned are lovely, the service is excellent and so is the food. I highly recommend this place.

A long day today - we visited the three ancient cities. I feared the U Bien bridge would be a disappointment after all I'd read from those who loved it. Wrong. We had a wonderful time there. Cheryl took a zillion photos, just loved it.

We have a great driver "Joe" who might have been Jules driver as well.

Tomorrow we have a day trip to Pyin U Lwin.

The weather has been perfect - nice and warm, not too hot. And better yet, it's snowing in Seattle.

Thanks to all of you for your good wishes.

Peter and Linda, I hope you are having a great time in Japan!

Thanks for letting me know Kathie as the GM when we were there was a Thai woman.

PS.. Ask the owner for a special on Burmese ruby!

I'm heading there with a tour in January so very interested in your comments. What is the process for changing money or do they accept USD?

Hanuman, I understand the owner mad ehis millions in Jade...

Deb, Buy a copy of the new Lonely Planet when it comes out in Dec - there is so much you need to know. Small purchases, meals in local restaurants you'll use kyat. You must have pristine dollars for use or exchange. Some things must be paid in US dollars - admission fees, flights, hotels, charges at hotels.

There are now official bank exchanges at three airports - Yangon, Mandalay and Bagan. Use these.

Thanks Kathie

I am so glad to hear you liked U Bein Bridge!!! We loved it. Did you take a boat? Loving having your immediate thoughts!

glad to hear it is going well.. we are loving the new areas od india we are visiting: udaipur and jodhour thus far---so different

Patty, yes, we took a boat - that's what you need for great photos. Cheryl pointed out that I exaggerated when I said she took a zillion photos at the bridge - really, only 407. (!!)

Bob, glad to hear you are having a good trip. More India is in our future.

Back from a very pleasant day trip to Pyin U Lwin. Enjoyed th garden, the market, and did a bit of shopping. An easier day than yesterday.

Hi Kathie. It's great to get your on the ground reports. I appreciate your taking the time to post.

I have 3.5 days in Mandalay. I note that you have reported that your day visiting Sagaing, Inwa, and Amarapura was a very long one. If I were to split visits to these sites over two days, how would you split it and how much time for each place? Thanks....and continued good travels.

Stephen

Stephen, we could have spent a whole day in Sagaing, and I would do so if I came back again. We saw only a few of the many interesting sights there, the the place was really lovely. Inwa was our least favorite, perhaps because there is no flexability in which sights to see. In Amarapura, we intentionally skipped watching the monks eat, visiting the monastery briefly. We visited a couple of temples and the silk-weaving workshop. The biggest attraction was the U Bien Bridge - allow a couple of hours at the end of the day.

Hanuman, I had a chat with the man I thought was the GM tonight (I don't ask for titles like Bob does - lol). The Current GM is a woman, not the Thai woman when you were here. I forgot to ask whether the owner made his fortune in rubies or jade. I'd take a discount on either one.

Thanks for inquiring for me Kathie. Reading your report make me want to hop on a plane and join you guys! However, we are having a good time in Chiang Mai and enjoying our resort here very much.

Hope the weather there is as good as it is here. Have a blast and see you in Bangkok!

Hi Kathie-Glad you are having a good time and that things are going smoothly. I have a couple of questions regarding your ancient cities trip set up by SM. What time did you leave the hotel and what time did you return to the hotel? Did you use a guide provided by SM or a guidebook, and if a guidebook only, did you set your own itinerary and just give the list to the driver or did you let the driver set the itinerary and pace?

Hi Kathie glad you are both having a great time. You say there have been so many changes in the 2 yrs since your last visit. I cannot believe the changes I am hearing about since our visit only one year ago! Ubien is great. I think you can understand how we ended up going there 4 times while we were in Mandalay!! Great atmosphere. We loved it. Say Hi to Min Thu when you get to him! Have fun & take zillions of photos Cheryl!! ( Cannot remember the number we took at Ubien but zillions does come to mind!!)

Hi Kathie. Thanks for the info on Sagaing. Extremely helpful. I will now plan accordingly.

I am thinking you must be in Bagan now. Trust you are enjoying your return visit there and catching up with Min Thu. I have booked his services for 4 days Jan 10 thru 13th. Please pass on my best wishes to him. I am looking forward to meeting up with him.

hope the fun continues... how is the temp?

Hi Kathie-I have been trying to email Zaw for the last week. I have sent about 15 emails on different days and still have not gotten a response. I am trying to finalize my Jan. trip, make sure my hotels and flights and are in order, and get a final invoice.. If you are in contact with Zaw would you please let him know that Rochelle is trying to contact him regarding my Jan. trip. Thanks.

Kathie- same here. Cindy trying to reach him about January trip. Getting very worried. Any advice?

So glad you enjoyed the ancient cities. Both my husband and I have one of my U Bein photos enlarged on canvas in our offices. Such a great reminder of our trip. Can't wait to read the rest.

Hello again everyone. I'm glad to finally have internet access again! We are having a wonderful time, just back from Mrauk U (wow). I hope all of you trying to contact Santa Maria are back in touch. They had email problems for a while and Zaw was upcountry for a while. I needed some immediate assistance re: our Sittwe times, and I spoke with Din who fixed it all quickly and efficiently.

Speaking of flights... every one of our flight times changed by the time we got here. SOmetimes only by 30 mins or so, other times by half a day. The airlines are well-known for changing flight times, so it's a good idea not to schedule things too closely. We met a couple in Mrauk U who were leaving at 2 am on the boat because the flight they had scheduled had changed times by an hour and they would not be able to catch their flight back to Singapore.

We are in Yangon for afew days, so I expect to have internet access on and off. I'm glad to answer questions as I can.

Thanks for the report, Kathie - looking forward to the full one once you return to Seattle.

Hi Kathie-Glad to hear the trip turned out as good as you had hoped. I am looking forward to reading your trip report once you return home. I know I will have many questions as I read it.

However, just briefly, can you say what was the highlight of your trip? And was there any lowlight? Or do I have to wait for the unabridged TR to find out?

Shelly, Mrauk U was the highlight for us.

Here is a brief summary of where we’ve been: We had four nights in Mandalay, two nights in Bagan, one night in Yangon at the Savoy, 4 nights in Mrauk U, and are now in Yangon for 4 nights at the Strand.

We had a nice visit with Min Thu in Bagan. He was wowed by his new computer, as was the whole family. We met his brother, Jyew (pronounced Jaw) Swe, who did our airport transfers. Min Thu took us to places we hadn’t seen on our previous trip. He keeps a log of where he has taken his customers, so if you return, he can take you to different places.

We had to have a night in Yangon in order to get to Mrauk U. The Starnd wasn’t available, so we stayed in a huge suite at the Savoy. I now understand what dogster meant when he said the Savoy was in an “out of the way” location. We had an excellent lunch at Kiplings, and had dinner at an Indian restaurant.

I was concerned that our flight to Sittwe had been moved 45 minutes later, so I feared much of our river trip would be in the dark. I contacted Din at Santa Maria about this, but the early flight doesn’t run that day. Din booked us a transfer from the Sittwe airport to the boat, so we wouldn’t waste any time. After doing it, I’d recommend that you book a transfer. I don’t book many transfers, but this one was worth it.

I’ll give you all the boat details in my report. Let me say that no matter which boat you book, expect rustic.

The Princess in Mrauk U is simply wonderful. The room rate includes both breakfast and dinner.

We booked a tu tuk the first day for our temple trip, but I recommend you skip the tuk tuk. This was the roughest-riding tuk tuk I’ve ever been in! The roads in and around Mrauk U are terrible. We booked a “car” for the next two days which was somewhat better. The cars you can book are ancient jeeps, no windows, so you will be inundated with the dust, but it’s the best available. We saw no enclosed cars in Mrauk U and only perhaps half a dozen such jeeps. While you can walk or bicycle from temple to temple in one area, there are many temples farther from town that are un-missable and for which you need some sort of motorized transport. The tuk tuk was 30,000 kyat for the day, the jeep was US$45 for the day – not much difference in price.

We are now in Yangon, and are preparing to change some more money to go shopping.

Hi Kathie....nice to see you surface again.....loved that Mrauk U "wow". I'm so glad I am including it in my Jan itinerary. Interesting comment about flights in/out Sittwe.

I in fact received notification from Santa Maria only last Friday that they had had to revise my itinerary for Mrauk U (which had been in place since August) because of flight issues. Fortunately I was able to 'find' a spare day and I am able to keep my visit to Mrauk U as planned....now however with an unwanted but necessary night in Sittwe on the return.

Enjoy the rest of your trip!

Stephen

Hi Kathie, really looking forward to your trip report. I stayed at the Savoy and the Strand when we went to Yangon, so will be interested in your thoughts on both places. We must have been lucky as our flights hardly changed at all but I remember you saying that they can do , so I purposefully put in an additional day in Yangon on the way back so we wouldn't miss our flight to Singapore.

Stephen, I think you'll find both Bagan and Inle to be "wow" experiences - they certainly were for us.

Getting to/from Mrauk U is a bit of an ordeal in that it messes with your whole itinerary. We managed not to have a night in Sittwe, but we did have a "wasted" day in Yangon. We spent the day trying to find a particular book on Mrauk U, and did finally succeed, so I guess we can't call it a wasted day.

The airlines are amazing in their capricious schedule changes.

Kathie-Did you book transfers to/from the pier and hotel in Mrauk U ? Did you book a transfer from the pier to to the airport in Sittwe? I do not know which transfers to book with SM as they seem very high to me, but if it is too hard and stressful to do it on the move, then I will book with them. Which transfers do you recommend I book in advance?Also, we have 2 nights in MU and I was planning to walk/bicycle to the temples. How far out of town are the temples you needed the jeep to see?

Shelly, are you staying at the Princess? If so, the Priness has its own jetty, so no need for transfers in Mrauk U. From the airport to the jetty in Sittwe was what was really valuable. If you are staying at the Princess, you need a jeep to see all of them, The Princess is really too far away to walk/cycle to any of the temples. If you are staying in town, close to the cluster of Shitthaung, AnDaw, etc, you can walk/cycle to those. The out of town temples took us 20-30 minutes by jeep. It takes so long because the roads are so bad.

There are lots of complicated issues about the boats. Most boats won't run at night, but the Prinecss boats do. Friends of ours had to cut their stay in Mrauk U short because of a flight time change and their private boat wouldn't run in the dark. They lost most of their time in Mrauk U because they got food poisoning on their private boat and spent their first day in MU being sick. While they had planned for three full days in MU, they had just one to visit temples. BTW, they got sick from the bananas on the boat, They hadn't been washed, and in peeling them, the bacteria from the peels got on their hands.

tell hillary to have her hair cut!!

We started our day with a walking tour of British Colonial buildings in downtown Yangon. The Strand offers a map and written commentary on the walk. We wanted to do this last time we were in Yangon, but the heat wave then (10 degrees F hotter than usual) prevented us from doing it. We left the hotel at 6 am, and returned about 7:30. They say the walk is an hour, and if you were only walking and not stopping constantly to take photos that’s how long it would take. By 7:30 it felt pretty hot out, so we were glad we started at 6:00. It’s sad to see so many buildings that appear to be structurally sound but are derelict from lack of use.

The walk is rather hazardous – with the broken pavement and sections of open gutters – you have to watch every step. I was surprised by how many people saw us looking at the map and offered to help. A couple of the old buildings identified on the map had fallen to demolition. And the US Embassy has moved from the location on the map to a location in the area of the University, according to an Indian caretaker of the building. We saw a half-block section of newly poured sidewalk on our stroll – the only such area I’ve seen in Burma. We gleefully walked the length of the new sidewalk.

We enjoyed walking through the Maha Bandoola Garden where locals were engaged in morning exercises. We saw some familiar Qi Gong and Tai Chi sequences and there were several clusters of people doing dance routines to hip-hop or rock.

For you foodies out there, we had a memorable lunch in Yangon today. Brief review and Cheryl’s luscious photos at http://www.travelindependently.com/a...unch-in-yangon Getting this posted was an ordeal with the modem-speed internet here.

We are hoping to meet up with some friends tonight for a drink in the Strand Bar. An old co-worker friend of mine was in Mrauk U at the same time we were. With a mere 3500 visitors there a year, what are the chances?

Kathie-We are staying in town at the Narawat Hotel because we wanted to be close to the sites. That hotel is supposed to be within walking and biking distance to most sites. We have 2 full days in MU to see the temples.

Our private boat comes in at the public jetty which is about a mile from the hotel. SM is charging $18 or $28 (can't remember which) for that transfer each way which seems like a lot for a short ride. Did you see any car taxis in Mrauk U?

I did not book a transfer to/ from the airport in Sittwe. Were there any taxis waiting for the planes, or do you recommend I book a transfer with SM. It's so hard to know what to book in advance as far as transfers go.

What a shame your friends got sick eating bananas, a fruit I trusted because you peel it yourself. Guess I won't be eating much on the boat ride. Thanks for the heads up.

Glad you are enjoying your trip. I am looking forward to your full TR. We leave in 7 weeks. As always, thanks for the great information which makes trip planning so much easier.

Shelly we never saw any taxis in MU. When we arrived at the public jetty there were not any offers of someone wanting to give us a ride. But that was a year ago! To be honest I let Santa Maria arrange the transfers as it was convienient for me. I cannot remember how much they charged us.
Kathie so glad you thought MU was "wow" we certainly did & were glad we had the time to fit it in on our trip last year. MU does have the roughest roads though! I loved the jeeps!

Thanks jules. I am going to let SM arrange the transfers in MU. What about in Sittwe? Were there any taxis waiting at the airport?