What's the right amount of cash to bring to Burma?
 

I realize the question is completely subjective...but, as a rule of thumb, what is the "right" amount of money to account for per day in Burma?

All of our hotels and car service will be pre-paid already when we arrive.

Figure we'll need cash on-hand for random taxis here and there, entrance fees, food and drink, guide fees (we won't have a guide *every* day), gifts/shopping and any other miscellaneous costs that may arise on a 10-day trip.

I hate the idea of carrying copious amounts of cash with me ANYWHERE, but realize I have to in Burma.

Also, do most hotels have safes to store said amounts of cash? I sure hope so.

Take more than you think you will need. Prices have gone up and there is no easy way to replenish your cash supply.

There are admission fees - $5 pp for Shwedagon, $10 pp for Bagan, $5 or $10 for Inle, plus extra for Kakku amd Sankar.

Food is not very expensive, except at the best restaurants in Yangon, where it is Bangkok prices.

Burma is the safest country I've traveled in. If you had dollars falling out of your pockets, people would pick them up and bring bring them to you. All of your hotels will have safes. There was one time at Inle when I forgot to take money out of the safe before we went out on the lake and I wasn't able to buy all the things I wanted to buy. Last year, I just alwayd carried more than I thought I would need. That worked well.

I agree with Kathie, definitely take more than you think you'll need. Remember also it has to be in pristine condition.

This is a total ballpark estimate. But to be totally comfortable, I would take $100pp/day. So for your 10 day trip, I would take $2000. I realize that you probably will need far-far less than this, but the last thing you want to worry about is having enough cash.

We did not take enough money when we visited Burma last year. We were living in Hanoi at that time and I based our expenses on Vietnam costs - boy was I wrong. I also forgot to include tips for drivers and guides among other things. We found that the cost of food was much higher than anticipated. We were fortunate that we met a friend (totally unexpected!) in the airport at Bagan - she was flying in and we were going out. She loaned us several hundred dollars - so we were "good to go" for the rest of our trip. Take it from me--worrying about having enough cash is not a fun experience! So take more--rather than less.

My experience is simply that if you have many dollars in your pocket you are much more inclined to spend. Bags of cash only encourages excessive consumption. Some folks have a great time touring on the shoestring and walking gently over the earth.

gailmo - when you say $100/pp/day are you considering what he said about what he's prepaid? - is that still what you recommend?

we'll only need to buy food, souvenirs, - i think almost everything else is included including guides/tips/entry fees. would you think for just food, beer, and any shopping (I'm not a huge shopper) $100 pp/day is what we should take?

jobin, I'm guessing that you have not been to Burma. So you may not be aware that no credit cards are accepted and you have to carry in all of the money you might need for your trip in pristine US dollars. So this is not a thread about being extravagant or being thrifty, it is a thread about being prepared for contingencies in a place where you cannot replenish your supply of money if you run out.

Leslie, there is a current thread on the Thorntree with the same question, and a number of people suggested $90-100 a day. Yes, this is probably more than they will need, but there are expenses like a horsecart in Bagan (about $18 a day) and the boat at Inle ($25-50, depending on where you are going). If you already have transfers (HeHo and Mandalay are the expensive transfers), boats and horsecarts, entry fees, etc., paid, then no, you do not need $100 a day. You would likely be fine with $50 a day. Usually, people do not have all of those things prepaid unless they are going on a group tour.

Filmwill, you often anticipate my questions! We have pretty much the same situation--except that we'll be on a Pandaw cruise for ten days in addition to ten days of land travel. On Pandaw, we can use credit cards, and will only have to pay for lunches....but we will be in Burma for twenty days, which at the $100 pp rate is a lot of cash to be carrying about....

I think $50 pp a day should be okay for the time we're on Pandaw....?

I expect $50 a day will be fine for the time you are on the Pandaw. 520, we carried thousands of dollars with us our first trip, as we had to pay our hotels in cash. Burma is the safest place imaginable to be carrying all that cash. Our second trip we did a wire transfer, so carried in less cash.

Even at $100 a day, 20 days is only $2000 to carry around. WHiel that would be a lot to carry in a US city, many people carry that much in Burma without a problem.

Easily take at least $100 pp per day. We brought about that much but were sorry we didn't bring more. At the beginning of the trip, we had no idea really of what our total costs would be so we skimped on buying things and were sorry later. The people you meet are so lovely, you will want to be generous with tips and donations- what is very little to us means a lot to them. There are many more people to tip than you realize, at the airport, hotels, restaurants, taxi drivers, guides, drivers, etc. And there is no way to get more cash if you see that special thing you want to bring back or splurge on a meal or two with wine. Safety was never an issue. Every hotel had an in room safe.

Kathie, it's not $2,000--it's $4,000. $100 pp per day--or if we do $50 per person for the Pandaw segment, it's $3000, which is pretty much what we'd been figuring. We really don't like to carry that kind of cash, but it looks like we'll have to....

We're probably not going to do much shopping--we're trying to get rid of things not acquire them.

Sorry, 520, I was thinking $100 per day, not $100 pp. I notice Gailmo was recommending $100 pp. I do think your estimate of $3000 for your trip will be plenty if you don't plan to shop.

Thanks, Kathie. Perhaps we'll compromise at $3500 :-). The bank will have stiff new bills next week.

That pretty much seems like exactly what I had assumed (about $100/pp/day)

What are your recommendations about bill sizes? Better to bring a variety (100s, 50s, 20s, 10s and 1s?) or mostly large bills with a handful of smaller bills? I assume that most vendors cannot break large bills?

No, vendors will not be able to break large bills, but then, you won't be paying vendors in US dollars. Pay them in kyat, as they can't legally have foreign currency. You'll want to use $100 bills to exchange for kyat. You'll need smaller bills to pay for your meals and incidentals at hotels, to pay admission fees and for any expensive restaurants in Yangon.

Kathie I need a clarification: I understand we need to change large bills into kyat. But am confused by this statement: "You'll need smaller bills to pay for your meals and incidentals at hotels, to pay admission fees and for any expensive restaurants in Yangon" Does that mean that meals, etc are paid in dollars?

Well, it is confusing. It used to be that all incidentals and meals at hotels and guesthouses were charged in US dollars. And it used to be that all non-hotel restaurants charged in kyats. But that line has blurred.

In 2011, we ate in one hotel restaurant, Kipling's at the Savoy, that was priced in kyat. All the other hotel restaurants we ate were priced in US dollars. During our last stay in Yangon, we stumbled across a couple of free-standing restaurants that charged in dollars, Ashoka, a free-standing Indian restaurant charged in US dollars, L'Opera, a free-standing Italian restaurant charged in kyats, and Le Planteur, a free-standng French restaurant in Yangon charged in dollars. Outside of Yangon, expect that all non-hotel restaurants will charge in kyat.

Had a long conversation with a neighbor who spent a month in Burma in '11 and she encouraged us to bring small bills as well as the larger, emphasizing, of course, the need for them to be pristine. She spent a lot of time outside of Yangon, and did use the smaller U.S. denominations without much difficulty.

Also saw a pretty good discussion on Trip Advisor of exactly this topic.

SO MUCH is changing in Burma, that I think there probably are no hard and fast rules for the moment. There's a front page WSJ article today about the explosion of international firms trying to establish business there and what that's doing to prices and everything else. It's being described as the "last frontier" before N. Korea.

We were in Russia in the early 90's, right after the White Revolution, and dollars--in all denominations--ruled. I don't know that that's a fair comparison, but the changes that were happening were so dramatic and so rapid, that when we returned a few years later, it (at least Moscow) was a different country!

This is really the last million dollar question for me about our trip (we leave 4 weeks from tomorrow!)

So much is changing that it's really hard to tell how much to bring in small US bills. Sounds like a lot of places are switching over to kyat completely.

Any recommendations? I just don't want to carry so much US cash that we've got a wad of bills that's harder to transport...but I also don't want to short-change ourselves should we get there and find that we need a bunch of smaller bills.

If you were to split up $1000 for a trip (per person), how would breakdown the US bills by denomination?

we're leaving early Thursday a.m. and taking $2000 pp, 3700 in 100s and 300 in small (20s, 10s, fives and ones) I think we did 100 in 20s, 150 in tens, and the 25 in fives and 25in ones. You'd be amazed how very compact brand new bills are. They're not a wad at all. Very compact and flat.