Rickyloo, This time we had 15 nights, first trip we had 12 nights. You might want to read my report on my first trip to Burma in 2009, www.fodors.com/community/asia/burma-at-last.cfm

Thanks to all of you following along.

The next day was our extra day in Mandalay. What a luxury to have a whole unplanned day! We debated about what to do with the day – should we go to Mingun? Visit historical sites in Mandalay? Shop? We check with Joe on our first day, but he was booked that day. I asked at the hotel whether they could get us an English-speaking driver, and they affirmed that they could. But after talking through all of the options, we decided to spend a day relaxing at the lovely hotel.

We each spent some time working on our reporting responsibilities – me taking notes on what I wanted to write in my report, Cheryl working on her photos. We also took time for a nice swim, trying out both of the pools. We had a nice talk with the manager and made our departure arrangements for the next morning. Joe would be driving us to the airport.

A note here about when to get to the airport. I figure an hour ahead of the flight is plenty. But the airlines all recommend 90 minutes before flight time. And the airlines do sometimes decide to take off an hour early (really!). So we, reluctantly, got to the airport 90 minutes early the next morning for our 7:55 am flight. We were there before 90% of the airport employees! The Mandalay airport is relatively new and clean, so it was not an unpleasant place to await our flight.

And a note about airlines... In general, the airlines are considered to be pretty much same-same. We flew Air Bagan last time, this time we flew Yangon Air and Air Mandalay. All the planes were ATR turbo-prop planes. I noticed that Air Bagan had a jet or two. All of the planes in Burma are 20 years old or more. Because of the economic sanctions, they cannot buy planes directly from the manufacturer, but must buy planes on the secondary market. Yangon Air planes we flew on (3 flights) looked their age. The interiors were banged up, and where latches had broken a variety of mismatched latches had been put in their place. I hoped the engines looked better. The flights were fine, though every landing was rough. We flew Air Mandalay on two legs (Yangon to SIttwe and return). Those planes were spiffed up inside, with new, leather covered seats. I have no idea whether the mechanical maintenance is better on one airline than another.

We were up very early the next morning. I mentioned earlier that the manager arranged for us to have an early breakfast and even served us himself. I felt like the staff at the Rupar Mandalar were truly invested in us having a great experience there – and we did indeed, have a great experience there. I’d highly recommend this hotel. We paid $160 a night, which included tax, service, and the wonderful breakfast. Online, I found it listed for US$200 a night.

Those of you who remember our last trip may remember that Bagan was the object of my desire, my childhood dream realized. Both because of that and because of our friendship with Min Thu, we just had to have a short stop in Bagan this trip. We had three full days of temples last trip, this trip we’d settle for a day and a half.

Our flight to Bagan was on time. Min Thu’s brother, Jyew (pronounced Jaw) Swe, met us. We had not met him before, but we both really liked him. I know he is taking some Fodorites to Mt. Popa. If/when we return to Bagan, I think we’ll do this side trip with him. He charges the standard 6000 kyat for an airport transfer.

Last trip, we stayed at the Hotel at the Tharbar Gate. It has the ideal location, right at the entrance to the archaeological zone. We had a huge suite that felt too big for us, but had a wonderful little private terrace where we had lunch each day. We decided to try out somewhere else this time. The Thiripyitsaya for years was considered “the” place to stay, but it had gotten tired over the years. The hotel was closed down for a while over the summer for refurbishing. I asked Zaw to get us a river view room back in June or July, but none were available. Only the riverfront suites at $240 a night were available. We talked about it and decided to splurge on a riverfront suite. The riverfront suite was simply wonderful. Right on the bank of the river, the big suite had a huge bathroom with double sinks, a separate shower and big soaking tub, a bedroom/dressing area, a nice living room area with a desk and comfortable furniture. There was also a large verandah overlooking the river. I’m glad the regular rooms were full. It turns out the regular rooms are pretty tiny. The hotel caters to a lot of tour groups, and we would have felt the impact more in the regular rooms. I should also mention the food at the hotel was mediocre, at best. Both Cheryl and I had trouble finding anything we wanted to eat at the breakfast buffet. Even the freshly cooked eggs were cooked in some kind of oil (as opposed to the butter they used at Rupar Mandalar) and were so over-cooked as to be inedible.

So Jyew dropped us off at our hotel, and confirmed our 3:00 time for Min Thu to pick us up for more temples. We had a good amount of time to settle into our lovely suite and watch the river go by.

Oh, Jenskar, I love the smuggling a tape out in a wig story!

Kathie,
I, perhaps, am the Fodorite,(although only a 'lurker' up to now) referred to by Jyew Swe. He is doing our transfer to/from the Mt. Popa Resort in early January. We also have 2 days booked with Min Thu (I hope, as I have been unable to contact him lately).

We leave from Toronto right after Christmas and will spend 16 days in Myanmar. Thank you so much for all your informative posts. Your advice has been invaluable in planning our trip. We are following many of your suggestions. I, too,am very interested in textiles. We will be doing a day trip to Pyin U Lwin so will visit the shop that you mentioned. Any other suggestions for places would be welcome.

We are scheduled to go to Ava but, after reading about the horsecarts, I am having 2nd thoughts. Is it possible to just walk around somewhere on our own?

Hi, glyntor, so you are another Fodorite going to Mt. Popa with Jyew Swe! Stephen (who posted somewhere above) is also doing this trip. I hope you have a wonderful time! If you have had email correspondence with Min Thu, I'm sure he has you on his (very full) calendar. If you don't hear back from Min Thu, re-send your email. The internet is not especially reliable in Burma.

Unfortunately, the things to see in Ava are far enough away that you can't really walk. It's the horsecarts or skip Ava.

I do have another suggestion for textiles in Yangon, located in the market. I'll post all the details when I get to that part of the trip.

I forgot to mention that the airport was all decorated and there were dancers in costume in the airport. The place where you pay your archaeological zone fee was better organized, and we got a real “ticket” as opposed to the stamped piece of newsprint we got last time. And once we got outside the terminal, everything was being cleaned, trimmed, painted. Bagan was expecting the tourism ministers from the neighboring ASEAN countries to visit in the next few days, to begin to promote Bagan as a tourism destination.

We met Min Thu at 3:00 in front of our hotel. When I had corresponded with him about our trip, I told him we wanted to see places we hadn’t seen previously, and that we would want a place for sunset viewing both afternoons, and a sunrise viewing the one morning. This turned out to be a very easy task for him, as he keeps a book of where he takes people so he can take you to other places the next time you come. Because we had sent him so many customers, Min Thu refused any payment for his services.

He knows we like off-the-beaten track places, and over the day and a half we spent there, we saw others at the temples only a few times. The rest of the time we were the only visitors. A number of the places he took us were temples within monasteries, places seldom visited by tourists. He chose a place for sunset photos, and there was a small group of Italians there photographing as well. I’ll let Cheryl’s photos speak for our temple-viewing.

On the way back to the hotel Min Thu said he wanted to invite us to his home for dinner the next night, his mother would make us a special feast. We were honored to accept his kind invitation.

Once we had planned our trip, Min Thu told us he had saved $300 and wanted a laptop. Could we find one for him? We did, indeed, find him a nice netbook for about $350, but I couldn’t bear to take his money. Can you imagine what it took for him to save that much money? So we and several other Fodorites who have toured with Min Thu went in together and bought him the computer. He didn’t know about this until we presented him with the computer after our sunset session. He was speechless when we told him he didn’t need to pay for the computer.

We arranged our time for the next morning and went off to our lovely riverside suite.
Bright and early the next morning we met Min Thu again to go view temples. I love riding in the horsecart in Bagan – the incredible temples everywhere. Once again I had the feeling that if all we did was to ride around in the horsecart absorbing the temples though eyes and skin, I would be happy. But of course, Min Thu took us to some incredible places. This trip, he showed us lots of interesting details. We went to a couple of places that had beautiful, intricate plaster carvings. We also saw some more murals that had well-preserved sections. He took us to one monastery that had a gorgeous bronze Buddha. All of the bronze Buddhas – with the exception of those in monasteries – are in the museums now, so it was a special treat to see this Buddha in the monastery temple.

Our pattern last time and this time was to go out at sunrise, visit temples until 11:00 or so, then back to the hotel for a dip in the pool and lunch. We went back out at 3:00 for more temples and sunset viewing. This is a schedule that works very well. It keeps us out of the sun during the hottest part of the day, and gets us out to the temples during the times of the day that are best for viewing and photography.

One of the monasteries he took us to had underground “caves” for the monks to live and meditate. We learned a lot more about the monasteries this trip, and were able to identify the typical monastery buildings, even those in ruins. In the late morning, Min Thu took us to see the line of novice monks gathering their food for the day. At one place, Min Thu did the honors of dishing out the rice to the novices.

Some places he took us to were for the view of other temples. Of course, this is what you are looking for at sunrise and sunset. Cheryl made a request for what kind of view she wanted for the sunset views on this day, and after thinking about it, Min Thu found the perfect place.
That evening, after our sunset viewing, Min Thu took us back to our hotel to clean up, then came and picked us up in his brother’s car and took us to his home in Old Bagan.

We had visited his home last trip, but this was a special visit. The food his mother had prepared was truly a feast. It was all delicious. We ate with Min Thu and Jyew Swe, as his parents didn’t feel their English was good enough to be comfortable conversing. Jyew Swe talked about how excited he was about Min Thu’s computer. He was excited for Min Thu, for himself and for Min Thu’s nephews and nieces. It really struck me that what we had conceptualized as a gift to Min Thu was a gift to his whole family.

Min Thu drove us back to our hotel that night and we said our good-byes. It had been a lovely visit.

The next morning, Jyew took us to the airport.

Kathie - Sounds great. For our first visit to Bagan, would you suggest the temples he took you to last year, or the ones he took you to this time? Also, is there some accessory for his new computer that you think he would like?

From Mumbai:
You are a good woman, Kathie. I have allocated a place in Dogster Heaven for you both. I wish I'd been there to see the look on Min Thu's face...

Kathie,

Ahhhhh spreading the love from Seattle to Burma. What a wonderful story. It put a big smile on my face this morning reading this report and your Min Thu followup. You two got a lot more than the sights from this trip.

We will use this report as a primer if we ever get to Burma and it seems we should do so sooner than later.

Aloha!

Yes, giving Min Thu the computer was a wonderful gift for Cheryl and I.

susncrg, You'll want to see the temples we saw the first time. I'd suggest you leave it to Min Thu to decide where to take you. That's what we did first trip. You'll be in good hands.

A number of people have asked about anything they can bring to Min Thu. Cheryl and I talked about it and found we were in agreement in recommending that people not bring him a gift, but simply pay him his rate. I know it was hard for him to accept the computer from us, and I think we was able to do it only because it it wasn't just from us, but also from some others who had toured with him.

Our plan to go to Mrauk U meant we had to have a “wasted” day somewhere. I decided I’d rather have that day in Yangon than in Sittwe. So we flew from Bagan to Yangon. Our favorite hotel, the Strand, was not available, so Zaw booked us into a suite at the Savoy. We thought it would be fun to compare the two. We were welcomed to the Savoy and given a suite on the third floor. They asked us if that was ok, as the Savoy does not have an elevator. I told them that was fine as long as someone else was carrying our luggage. But for any of you with a bad knee, be forewarned.

The suite was huge, with a big living room with a nice desk, a large bedroom, and a big bathroom. The place smelled dusty to me, but since I’m allergic to dust, I’m pretty sensitive. I found the room to be rather dark, furniture a bit uncomfortable, so I wasn’t inclined to hang out in the suite. We decide to have lunch at Kipling’s. I had a wonderful banana and mango curry that had some real pizazz to it. Cheryl had a potato gratin dish that she termed “ok.” Oddly enough, the menu was priced in kyat – usually hotel menus are priced in dollars.

Our goal for the day was to find a book on Mrauk U I’d been looking for for several years. By Patricia Gutman, Burma’s Lost Kingdoms: Splendors of Arakan, is considered the premier book on Mrauk U and the surrounding area. It was published by Orchid Press, which is located in Bangkok, and I was sure I could find it there. But Asia books had been sold out of the book for years and doubted I could find it in Bangkok. I had a bookstore recommendation in Yangon, Myanmar Book Centre, located on the corner of Baho and Ahlone Road. A taxi dropped us off there. When we went in, my immediate thought was that we had the wrong place. The store was filled with children’s books. It turns out they have another store next door, which is what we were looking for. The woman there was very helpful, but could not find us the book, their records showed that they had been out of the book for years as well. We looked at a couple other books, finally she said they had something – she pulled out a copy of the book that had been damaged in opening the original box – the binding was cut in several places. She was willing to sell it as is for $49 – their usual price was $65, and the price on the book cover was $45. They would be willing to rebind it, and sell it to us for full price, but we didn’t have time for that. We snapped it up and took it back to the hotel to read.

I had written to Din (at Santa Maria) from Mandalay because I was concerned that our flight from Yangon to Mrauk U was now later by an hour, and I feared that the boat trip would be mostly in the dark. Would the boat even run in the dark? Santa Maria was having email problems and I couldn’t get online in Bagan so I hadn’t heard back from him. I called him from the Savoy. He apologized for their email problems – he had written to me that morning but the internet connection at the Savoy was too slow for me to be able to access my email. (later I was able to access my email and help Shelly make contact with Santa Maria) Anyway, the flight that is early in the morning doesn’t fly every day, and didn’t fly the day we were flying. So with nothing to be done about the flight, Din said he arranged a (complimentary) transfer for us from the airport to Princess boat so we wouldn’t waste any time. I thought that was very nice of him.

We spent a good part of the afternoon reading the book, trying to get a grasp of the history of the Arakan and an idea of what we wanted to see at Mrauk U. Previously, the only real source we had was the LP. By the end of the afternoon, we had a much better idea of our plan for Mrauk U.

We decided to go to an Indian restaurant for dinner, Ashoka. It is recommended in the LP and a Fodorite (PattyRoth, I believe) recommended it as well. As we were getting into a taxi at the Savoy, an expat woman who worked for an NGO was arriving in a taxi. She asked where we were going in case she could help. We told her and she gave good instructions to the driver (it is close to the Chatrium) and told us to enjoy it – the food was wonderful. We love Indian food and were looking forward to dinner there. The food was good, we enjoyed our dinner there. Prices were in US dollars, and were rather high for Burma – they were US prices, I’d say. After a pleasant evening, we headed back to the Savoy.

The next morning, we had breakfast at the Savoy (an ok buffet). We had some time before we had to go to the airport, as our flight now didn’t leave until 1 pm. I decided to try to get online. So I was sitting in the lobby, waiting for a page to load. An expat couple living in Singapore was there, and we struck up a conversation (still waiting for the page to load) and discovered we were all on the same flight to Sittwe, and that they, too, were headed to the Princess. I never did get online, but enjoyed chatting with them.

Off to the airport, we had several men helping us with our luggage. I realized that they had on Air Mandalay shirts, so whether you had people trying to help you depended on which airline you were flying. I must have tipped this guy more than he was used to getting (1000 kyat), because when we went out to board the plane, he ran out, carried my carry on, and handed it up to me after I’d ascended the stairs!

Anyway, once they called our flight, we all went out and got on the bus. They drove us maybe 20 yards, stopped, and after a while went back to the terminal and we all got off – there was a problem with the plane. After maybe 15 minutes we were called to get back on the plane. This little interlude gave me the chance to meet a fascinating Burmese woman. She is the owner of a guesthouse in New Bagan. She has the best business card I’ve ever seen – her titles include “globetrotter” and “propagator of Buddhism.”

So we finally take off for Sittwe. When we arrive, a rep from Santa Maria is there, and he sends some guys off to find our luggage. We chat again with the expats from Singapore… we’ve all been a bit nervous about whether we’ll we able to make it to Mrauk U that day. The LP notes that the boats won’t go in the dark, and it seems clear to me that at least half of our journey will be in the dark. But he has just heard that the owner of the Princess was on our flight, so he predicts that the boat will go.

Our luggage has been located, and we are whisked off to the jetty.

Still following, Kathie and totally enjoying it - especially the presentation of the computer to Min Thu...

reading with interest

When we got to the jetty, I noticed that there isn’t one Mrauk U Princess boat, but three of them, tied up side by side. As the first passengers there, we walked a plank onto the first boat (a bamboo pole is held by two men to serve as a handrail), cross that boat into the second, then onto the third. Our luggage is loaded unto the boat, and we cast off… I’m just beginning to understand how this works.

The boat is an old teak boat – no brass or polish, the boat is quite rustic. There is a covered (but not enclosed) cabin that contains a table and six plastic armchairs. Somehow, I had a different picture of the boat that cost $425 per person round trip. But the boat seems sound, and we are now on the river and there is a lot to see. After a while the cabin boy asks if we would like lunch. Sure – that’s one of the perks of taking the Princess boat, you get meals and drinks. We were served a lovely three-course lunch. The food was excellent.

We both enjoyed watching the life along the river. As the sun went down and it started getting dark, I asked how long it takes to get to the Princess. The man tells me 9 hours. Nine hours!!? I think the estimates I’d read ranged from 4 or 5 to 6 or 7. But 9 hours? That would have us arriving around midnight. We settled in for a long trip. By now it was starting to get cool, and we both pulled jackets out of our luggage. We were doing fine until the “rain of the insects.” As it got truly dark, a fluorescent light came on in the cabin. It quickly attracted insects, more and more insects. We tried to move away from the bulb, but there wasn’t that much space. The man came out with insect spray. I said no. I don’t like to use pesticides. We asked if he could turn the light off. But apparently everything is on one circuit, so turning off that one light turned off all the lights. Finally we consented to have him spray. This was more effective than I had anticipated, and the insects cleared and we had only a few insects buzzing around for the rest of the trip.

In the dark what we could see were the stars – lots of starts. We could see the Milky Way. I kept wishing there was a way to turn off the single light so we could have true darkness to view the stars.

Suddenly, the boat slowed. Cheryl looked out and said she could see lights. The man comes into the cabin and we ask what the lights are. The Princess! It is the Princess! What? It’s not nearly midnight. It’s 9:00. (Only much later did I realize that was what the man was telling us when I asked how long it would take to get to the Princess – we would get there at 9 hours, i.e., 9:00!) The Princess has its own jetty. We were met and escorted to the lodge. Several other people have also just arrived, including our new friends from Singapore. The manager suggests we order our dinners before we go to our rooms to clean up. We do so, and are escorted to our lovely little cabins. All of the rooms at the Princess are individual "Village Houses." The big room has a king sized bed draped with mosquito netting, two desk areas, and comfortable chairs, and there is a nice big, bathroom with a separate soaking tub and shower.

We went back to the lodge and had a lovely dinner. Both breakfast and dinner are included in the room price ($176 per night including tax and service). You choose courses from their menu – you can have an appetizer or a salad, a soup, a main course and a dessert. I don’t think there was any evening when I could eat all of that!

We talked briefly with one of the staff about transport to the temples the next day. They could get us a car or a tuk tuk. We didn’t want a hermetically sealed air-conditioned car that would cut us off from the experience, so we said we’d like a tuk tuk. We needn’t have worried about being cut off from the experience.

Very interesting. Thanks.

Well, I have just nine words to express my reaction to your Princess "cruise". OMG! OMG! OMG!

What time did your boat actually leave the pier? And how long did it take to get to Mrauk U? We are on the early flight to Sittwe. So fingers crossed, we will arrive in daylight. But as you've said many times about Burma, you never know.

Looking forward to the rest of your MU adventure.

Loving your report and can't wait to see Cheryl's photos. So glad you loved UBein Bridge. It was a highlight for us. The owners of Ashoka are a retired Burmese couple we have gotten to know who now live somewhat near us and he spends months in Myanmar helping young Myanmar people to find success, with other businesses he has. Truly a lovely, gracious, and kind-hearted couple! They also have Goldenrock Travel in Yangon and were of immense help to us. Their workers are like their children.

Shelly, the boat trip from Sittwe to Mrauk U was about 5 hours. I'll have more to say about the boat trip that we learned not just from our own cruise, but from others' experiences as well.

We were up early the next morning, had breakfast (a lovely breakfast buffet with lots of choices) and were ready to head off to the temples. There is a cluster of temples in town that includes Shit-Thuang, considered the most important temple in Mrauk U, so we decided to start there. The tuk tuk could best be described as a motorcycle with a truck bed attached. There were benches on each side of the truck bed. This proved to be a very rough ride. The roads in Mrauk U were in terrible condition. There was a bit of broken pavement here and there, but mostly, the roads were rutted dirt and rocks. And the open tuk tuk gave us lots of contact with the dust.

As we drove out of the gate of the Princess, there were houses on each side of the road. Children ran out of the houses to wave at us and yell “bye-bye.” It’s been a long time since I’ve been somewhere that a visitor was an oddity! At the temples, children and novices wanted their pictures taken so they could see themselves on the camera. It was such a novelty to them. Indeed, three novices at Shit-Tuang got to be real pests, jumping into Cheryl’s photos. We had to gently encourage them to let Cheryl take photos undisturbed.

The temples at Mrauk U are monumental. One of the things that struck me immediately about these temples were the hidden features, so many layers to uncover. A number of the temples have “catacombs” lined with Buddhas, hidden walkways filled with Buddha’s, doorways to other passageways hidden behind architectural features. Mostly, I’m going to let Cheryl’s photos speak for the temples.

At the end of our visit to Shit-Taung, we had a near-disaster. Several of the temples, including Shit-Taung have ceramic tiles on the floor. As we were leaving the temple, Cheryl missed a step and fell, her camera on its tripod in hand. Fortunately, she was only bruised. The filter on the telephoto lens was cracked, however, and the filter was bent so would not come off. The camera was still working, so we went ahead, hoping the photos would turn out ok. A couple of hours later, Cheryl was able to ease the filter off the telephoto lens.

In the afternoon, we visited some farther temples. The last temple Cheryl had chosen, the driver (who spoke little English) brought us to the bottom of a high hill and pointed to a gold spire on top of it. Ok, we started climbing. It got steeper and steeper. The “trail” is what I would call a goat trail. Lots of loose rock, no real hand holds. We got up to a small shrine with a Buddha inside and I said I’d had enough – not only was it steep, but it was hot, hot, hot. Cheryl did go all the way to the top. But even Cheryl admitted it was more than she had bargained for. The lesson from that one: If the map shows a temple and no road close to it – forget it!

After our day in the tuk tuk, we realized that neither of our backs was going to stand for much more. We asked about a car, and the hotel said they would get us a car for the next day. After talking about what went well and what didn’t go as well, we decided the morning (until about noon) was the best time for the temples. Even late afternoon was very hot. So we opted for a half a day of a car and driver for our second day.

I saw no enclosed cars during our time at Mrauk U. My concern about being “hermetically sealed” away from the experience was totally unfounded. The ancient jeep was slightly better in terms of how rough the ride was, but was still very dusty as it had no windows. The goal of our second day was Koe Taung Temple, which is farther out of town. This is another remarkable, monumental temple. In some of the catacombs here were wall decorations in high relief, rows of Buddhas, some parrots and other animals, between the seated Buddha statues.

After our visit to Koe-Taung, we stopped at some nearby temples, then went back to town to visit the museum. The museum was interesting and it had some books about the temples for sale.

In the afternoon, we decided to do some spa at the Princess, and asked for foot and leg massage. Their idea of massage and mine differ. My legs are still bruised from the “vigorous” massage!

The third day we chose a number of lesser-known sites to visit. Cheryl gave the driver our list and he stopped to consult with two friends on where these places were. While these temples and monasteries were interesting, none were as stunning as the places we saw the first two days. We did, however, keep running into a pilgrimage group at these places, which was fun.

We did see two tourist buses in town, but we never saw them out at the temples, so while tour groups to Mrauk exist, they are not (yet) an intrusive presence.

Conclusions: You can see the major temples at Mrauk U in two days. The cluster in town are walkable if you are staying close, the ones outside of town, you’ll need transport. I’d highly recommend a jeep over the tuk tuk.

In the process of planning this trip, I happened to answer a question on Thorntree, and began to correspond with a fellow Seattleite. I quickly learned that this was someone I used to work with 20 years ago! So since we would be in Mrauk U at the same time, we made plans to meet. I had never run into Tom in Seattle, but half way around the world, we are in Mrauk U at the same time! We had dinner together and heard their story of the boat ride to Mrauk U. Tom and his friend arranged (via a travel agent) for a private boat (about $300 pp round trip). On their cruise to Mrauk U, the boatmen gave them a bunch of bananas to eat. Subsequently, they both became very ill. They decided the problem was the unwashed bananas, and transferring the bacteria from the banana skins to their hands to the peeled bananas even though they both used disinfectant on their hands). As a result they were both very ill for the first full day there were in Mrauk U, neither left their room. The second day they did get out to see temples, but their travel agent called and said because the flight time had changed (it was now earlier) they had to go to Sittwe on Day 3 to catch their early flight on Day 4. Thus, while they had planned for three full days in Mrauk U to visit temples, they essentially got one day.

Our new friends from Singapore also had a flight problem. The Air Mandalay flight had been moved to later, so it wasn’t clear that they could catch their return flight to Singapore. And the flights to Singapore were all sold out, so if they missed their flight, it would be several days before they could fly back to Singapore. Their travel agent booked them on the early flight out of Sittwe. Had they rented a regular boat, they would have lost a day in Mrauk U. Instead, on the Princess boat, they left at 2:30 am and they caught the early flight to Yangon. So they retained all of their planned sight-seeing days in Mrauk U.

So while I thought I was buying luxury by paying extra for the Princess boat, it turned out that I was paying extra for (1) time – the Princess boat operates at night as well as during the day and (2) no food poisoning. By the way, it turns out there are at least four Princess boats, each slightly different.

Getting to Mrauk U is complicated and you can almost guarantee that something about your arrangements will change. Mrauk U is absolutely worth the time, money and hassle. While I didn’t know exactly what I was buying when I booked the Princess boat, I realize now that it was the best thing I could have done. Otherwise we would have had to spend a day in Sittwe (where Tom described the best place in Sittwe has being full of fruit bats) on the way in, and maybe even on the way out. Instead, we had three full days of sight-seeing in Mrauk U and loved it all!

When it was time to leave the Princess, they scheduled our boat for 6 am (they like to leave extra time to ensure that you will make your flight even if there is a problem with the boat). We had one of the larger boats going back and it was more comfortable than the first boat. The boatmen pulled out lounge chairs for us, and we wrapped up in our coats (it was cold out there on the water in the early morning!) and they brought out blankets for us (much appreciated)! We were able to sit up on top of the boat, which we also enjoyed.