In this post we will tell you in which hotel/hostel we stayed, give a top 3 for each town we visited and tell you one short story to each destination in order of our trip. At end we will describe some general insights that we made.

Route: Yangon – Inle Lake – Hsipaw – Gotheik Viaduct – Mandalay – Bagan – Mount Popa – Ngapali Beach – Yangon

Departure 28.03.2013

Flight from Munich via Bangkok to Yangon

Our trip started with the happy message that our luggage didn’t arrive with us in Yangon. But no worry – the airline was quick. In the evening they called our hotel: the luggage arrives with the next plane. So with a quick taxi ride we went back to the airport again that evening, picked up our backpacks and everything was fine. All in all we were very satisfied with Thai Airways: good service, good food, nice travel.

Yangon

May Shan Hotel – good located in the south of the city, next to the famous Sule Pagoda with very friendly English speaking staff. The rooms are small and without window, but for a stopover in Yangon its fine. The price is ok and most of the sights in the city center are in walking distance.

Aung Mingalar Bus Terminal

Somehow we skipped the info that this is the only bus terminal for all 150 bus lines that go to the northern part of the country. We arrived a little bit before dawn, our bus should leave at 7 o’clock. We thought half an hour before departure should be more than enough to be in time for our bus to Inle Lake. In theory right, but … most of the 150 bus lines leave around this time. As a consequence all travelers arrive around the time we did. Our German expectation for some kind of regulation at the terminals was once again confronted with a friendly foreign „Why bother?!“. Everybody tried to get inside the compound, with cars, motorcycles, with heavy luggage, even busses trying to get to there departure point – in one word: chaos. We were stuck – so we had to leave our taxi and tried our luck by foot. With the help of some burmese people we got to our bus in time. It even departed in time, but it took the bus about an hour to leave the compound.

Our Top-3 in Yangon:

Shwedagon Pagoda
It is the most stunning place in Yangon. We recommend to go there early in the morning or shortly before dawn. Take your time to explore the pagoda, sit down, watch the people moving around. This is a place to stay and pause.

Yatha Teashop
A classic muslim-style teahouse. While you enjoy the very tasty food and excellent coffee you can watch Yangon come alive and go to work. Very friendly staff – if you don’t know what to order they will explain their menu to you.

Danuphyu Daw Saw Yee Myanma Restaurant
They serve some very tasty myanmar-style curries with sour soup. You can have a look at the food before you order it at the counter.

Inle Lake (Nyaungshwe)

Nawng Kham – The Little Inn – just a few rooms and a lovely garden with a swinging bench, good choice. They also rent bicycles – a good way to explore the town and its surrounding! Tip: check the flush lavatory before moving in a selected room ;o)

The guy who sold us the boat trip around Inle Lake said something like „sure I will be there tomorrow“. Of course he wasn’t, but a local boy picked us up – so no problem. Unfortunately he spoke only a few english words. The motor roared loud and we took off to our day on the lake. If you want to take a picture like the one you saw in the tourist info – a fisherman using the traditional net alone on the lake – be ready and take every chance you get. More often as the lonely fisherman you will see motorboats with tourists like you – especially in the morning when the race starts. Fortunately the lake is very wide and you have a good chance to escape the crowds, if you have booked a boat for yourself. More or less every boat hits for the same spots – but you do not want to miss the Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda, with its five buddha statues transformed into gold leaf blobs by worshippers (only man are allowed near the statues!) – and the golden barge shaped like a bird. In the morning we also went to Ywama, the swimming market. When we went there it took place onshore as it was too dry. There are lots of people who sell souvenirs but if you quickly skip them you reach the place where fruits and vegetables, fish and so one are sold to locals. We recommmend to go there as early as possible in the morning because this is the time when the locals go there. Later you will only meet tourists … After the the Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda and the Nga Phe Kyaung monastry we’ve decided to see Maing Thauk on the way back. One half of the village is on the lake (floating houses and gardens) the other half is on the shore – you can walk a long wooden bridge through the village. We liked it a lot.

Our Top-3 in Nyaungshwe

Take a bike and explore the area
The landscape around Nyaungshwe and Inle Lake is beautiful and it is really easy to bike and get in contact with local people. Don’t forget your cap – the sun is merciless!

Thu Kha Coffee
Again a muslim-style teahouse, at the corner of the mainroad and the market. They offer very good coffee and the food is made freshly on a stove on the street.

The morning market Mingala
It’s interesting to see what local people buy for lunch.

Hsipaw

Mr. Charles Guest House – the older part of the guest house has charm, the new annex/hotel on the left is more something for Chinese tourists. The staff is friendly and helpful.

We arrived early in the morning. After a hot shower and small breakfast we went off to a half day boat trip organized via the guest house. Upstream we went. Our guide was an English speaking young guy (a student) who had intense knowledge about the area. The scenery is nice and its a little cooler on the river. After approx. 30 minutes we stopped on the other shore of the river and took a short uphill trek. On the way we met an very, very old lady, who was very pleased to see us. She seemed to live there beside her field in a bamboo hut. She was amused that Claudia was that much taller than her. It was a short but very nice encounter. In the brochure for that trip it is said „trekking up the hill through fruit plantation“ – which is true, but unfortunately in April the harvest is long over and the sun has burned the rest. Only a few small pineapple plants were in flower – interesting to see! At the shady monastery we saw little novices freaking out because the ice man came along – kids are the same where ever you go in the world. It was a funny situation. Later we visited an old village where the people prepared for a big ceremony/event. They invited us to join them. At the end of the trip there was the time for a dive in the river.
The next day we trekked five hours uphill to the village Palaung and slept there at a home stay. Because people need a permit to give foreigners a bed, you can’t go there yourself so we had to join a guided tour. It is a nice walk, not very steep. But its hot! Along the way we saw monocultures of watermelons for the export to China as well as preparations for a gas pipeline as well for the export of natural gas to China. This gas deal brings way more money than all the tourist money combined. As we arrived a very nice lady cooked us excellent local food. We took a nap and after that took a walk around the village. The home stay was a simple bamboo house, like all the villagers have one. We slept excellent on a mattrace on the bamboo floor. This was an experience not to miss!

The Gotheik Viaduct – from Hsipaw to Mandalay

One of the most memorable train rides in our entire travel history! We started at Hsipaw in the early morning. They don’t have a working telephone there so they have to communicate with walkie talkies with the train station where the train is coming from. You could choose between to classes and we booked a upper seat ticket, because we weren’t feeling too well. As we entered the train, we couldn’t believe it. The whole coach was in really bad shape, and we were the only passengers in this class. The seats were covered in what was once white cotton. It was really ugly at first, at least the first hour, than we got used to it. More spectacular was that the coaches started to roll, as the train started moving. Have you ever been on a ferry during a storm? This was similar – only sideways. We were very thankful that the train had only a maximum speed of approx. 20 km/h. It would have been possible to walk along. As we had got used to the rolling of the coach it suddenly got really hot at my ear, I instantly moved my body away from the heat and shouted a warning to Claudia. A burning bush came threw the open window – Claudia had a god reaction and so we both didn’t got grilled. Seems the locals outside did their fire clearence a little to o near by the train track… Before we reached the viaduct, the train came to a complete stop. We saw the viaduct from the windows of the right side. Wow, what a construction. The train started to move really, really slow over the bridge. You could hear the construction work. The old rusty viaduct literally mounded and screeched. It was breathtaking! In this moment – looking into the abyss – it crossed my mind if that was really such a good idea – but now it was too late. We reached the other side, like hundreds of trains before and probably after us will. So, don’t panic – this works very well as long as the train rides very slowly ;o) We left the train at Pyin Oo Lwin after the viaduct and rode on a pick up truck to Mandalay – which was a little adventure on itself.

Mandalay

Mandalay City Hotel – international standard hotel with a nice pool

If you are standing in front of the Mandalay City Hotel, cross the street and walk in the direction of the clock tower. On a street corner during the day there is nothing, but in the evening you will find an excellent street restaurant on the pavement. Should you be a soccer fan, ask the bearded guy who speaks English and watches over the waiters. He is a big soccer fan and watches every game of Bayern Munich and in general the European leagues. He could even pronounce „Schweinsteiger“ – the name of a famous German soccer player – flawless. Everything that he told us to try to eat was excellent and very tasty! So a great choice for dining in Mandalay.

In our hotel we could witness something totally different. A table with french tourists were constantly complaining. The water was not cold enough, the wine wasn’t served from the right side, and on, and on … unfortunately I was to cowered to tell them that their glorious colonial days were long over. This kind of ignorant tourists would never eat at the street corner – they don’t know what they are missing …

Ayeyarwady river – a boat trip from Mandalay to New Bagan

Via our hotel we booked the Shwe Keinnery boat. We got on the boat shortly after sunset. Some tourists and a lot of locals were already on board. Because we did not want to sit indoors there were only two shady options to sit – both occupied – so we decided to sit on the upper deck in front of the bridge, where some plastic chairs were available. The boat left at 7 am on time and at first there was a lot to see. As the Ayeyarwady got wider and the sun got higher the shore was too far away to see details. From time to time one or two crew members had to go to the bow and measure the deep of the river with a bamboo stick. The boat – although you could only see one flat surface – drove in curves. At dawn we arrived at New Bagan were a lot of transports waited, so its no problem to get to our hotel.

Tip: Bring some food and enough water, because the trip was long and the sun was a challenge. You can buy stuff on the boat as well. As our stomaches didn’t work very well the last days we prefered our own, dry cookies. Don’t forget to bring a cap or a scarf to put your head into shadow during the boat ride.

Bagan

Kumudara Hotel – the highlight of this very nice only two story high, small complex is the outdoor pool from which you can see directly into the temple plateau. It has a little restaurant with an outdoor terrace as well.

The archeological zone is spectacular and you can choose to go for the highlights or just stroll around. We did both and were amazed. Most remarkable was our search for some money. Our taxi driver knew of a bank branch at the airport. We arrived in the afternoon from a day trip but the airport was closed. He knew another one in Bagan. As we arrived the branch was closed as well because of the coming water festival as a sign told us. Fortunately there was an ATM outside. Our driver asked me if he could come along, because he had never seen such a machine working. It took me a second to realize that this really could be true. So we all went to the ATM and I showed him what I had to do to get my/some money out. He wanted to know how the machine knew how much money it had to give me and if the machine was reliable. A very interesting situation.

Our Top-3 in Bagan

Temple: Ananda Pahto

Activity: just walk into the temple area and explore all the little but none the less interesting stupas and pagodas.

Restaurant: If you prefer a good sunset view over Ayeyarwady river with your drink try The King Si Thu. It is a Chinese / Thai restaurant as well.

Mount Popa (day trip from Bagan)

We chartered a taxi to drive to Mount Popa. On our way we encountered the first Water Festival “foretaste” in form of children throwing water at the taxi. Our driver explained to us that it would be the last day that it would be possible to drive to Mt. Popa, because the next day the villagers would block the roads. As we arrived many Burmese people climbed the stairs with us to the top. Left and right from the stairs you have the obligatory souvenir vendors, getting higher a lot of monkeys join you. The stairs are full of monkey poo that a few locals remove and try to earn some cash for it. On top you have a great vista, but even more interesting are the many shrines, the people that loudly try to direct the flow of worshippers into the different shrines and the display of huge glass boxes with lots of donated cash in these shrines. Together with the many colorful dressed nats this is truly a very Burmese experience that you shouldn’t miss!

Bagan to Ngapali Beach

Because of the arriving Thingyan (Water Festival) all buses were occupied, taxi drivers refused to drive us (not only because this is a high bank holiday, but because there is no getting through the villages), so that we had to make a decision. We bought tickets for Air Bagan (in the general insights section below, we will lay out why we did that, and how we think the impact of such a decision is). The flight was somehow unusual, because we didn’t fly the direct way. We first flew into the opposite direction and landed in Heho near Inle Lake in the eastern part of Myanmar. “Oh no, we’re in the wrong plane” was our first thought as nobody told us about a landing in Heho when going to the west(!) coast. We asked one of the crew members and she told us that this is only one of two stops in between of their way to Yangon – first Heho and second Thandwe (Ngapali Beach). Here only some peole (die-)embark and the plane was fueled again. So, finally, by noon we arrived at the westcoast – after a very interesting flight.

Ngapali Beach

Bayview Beach Resort – a very green, very friendly, very good maintained beach resort that was to us – compared with the parts of Burma we saw until that point – like another planet. Here we spent the rest of our vacation in Myanmar – relaxing at the beach, reading a lot, BBQ at the beach. The resort is a good place to get some rest and process the impressions of the last two weeks of backpacking through Myanmar. We met some other people from Munich and spend some lovely days. Beside: The hotel manager is a German guy – really friendly and helpful.

Thingyan the Water Festival

Every Hotel at Ngapali Beach seemed to have a stage with loud electronic dance music, infront of these stages a lot of Burmese danced, drank and most important tried to get everybody wet who passed. Our hotel converted a small rack body truck into a party vehicle with water supply and water guns. With that we drove around the area and people were partying everywhere, not only infront of the hotels. After a short while our truck was boarded by locals who showed us their mastery in hitting people with water. It was a great atmosphere, like Love Parade in the early 90ties with a heavy dose of Burmese happiness.

Ngapali Beach to Yangon

The bus ride back to Yangon got us very quickly to the reality of Burmese everyday live. We were the only tourists, as the normal tourist flys back to Yangon. As you would expect the old bus was jam-packed and the road was the worst on the whole trip. It’s called the main road but it was only a small dirt road… Of course we had a flat tire, but this was a welcomed stop. We started in the afternoon and arrived in Yangon – at the same chaotic bus terminal – in the morning.

Yangon

East Hotel – good & modern hotel, but it lacks the charm of May Shan Hotel. Special feature: the lavatory is separated from the bedroom only by a drop curtain…so you should be very close with your roommate ;o)

On our last day we had breakfast at Yatha Teashop again, bought some souvenirs and drank some tea at The Strand.

To say goodbye to Burma and to thank the universe for our save trip, we went back to Shwedagon Paya on our last evening. This place is magic!

Arrival Munich 21.04.2013

 

General Insights

Flying with Air Bagan

It is known that the Owner of Air Bagan has close ties to the Military. Therefore you can often read the advice to avoid this and other companies.

Tourism industry contributed $182 million USD (2007) to the government’s annual budget. Compared to the volume of the gas contract that Burma and China signed about the export of gas from Burma to China over a 30 year period this contribution seems relatively small.

We experienced that the people in Burma monitor closely where tourists spend their money. They laugh a lot about the tower in Bagan that the owner of Air Bagan build, because many tourists refuse to go there.

That being said, in my opinion not spending money on companies with close ties to the government seems to be a token gesture. You can or even should do it – this is up to you, but the real influencers are countries like China and their impact on the economy and state budget of Burma.