Myanmar Trip 2014 - Part 1 (Yangon)
Hola!
This post is about as backdated as can be given that the trip took place in November LAST YEAR. But like they always say, better late than never!
I will break the posts for this trip into 5 parts:
Myanmar Trip Part 1 - Yangon
Last year, Weihao, Phyllis and I went on a 7D6N trip to Myanmar - covering Yangon (minimal time spent here though), Bagan, Mandalay and Inle Lake (Heho). It was a self-planned trip so we had to arrange and book the bus trips and hotels ourselves. These were not difficult as most bus companies had websites and hotels were easy to book online as well (or at the very least, the hotel/hostel owners were contactable by email with decent proficiency in English).
Let me start this post with a bunch of out-of-the-airplane shots - because I can't get enough of those fluffy white clouds! So bear with me.
All ready to take off!
Yangon International Airport is one of the more un-eventful airports I've been to. It is relatively small (about the size of Singapore's ex budget terminal before it got tear down of course) and doesn't have many retail options. So don't expect to land here and have entertainment/retail therapy options ready for you.
Usually most travelers will bring US dollars to the Yangon airport and change for the local kyats. Do remember that your US dollars should look as new and crease-less as possible - as the local money changers are wary of fake notes, if your US notes are wrinkly/folded or generally looks a bit old, they will reject it. To ensure that, I kept my US dollars between books to make sure they are nice and flat before going for this trip.
It took us a while to get our luggage as the collection area is really small and there were crowds of travelers. We took a cab out to the city area to look for a local outlet to lunch at. It was very hot in Yangon and the sun is merciless! I wished I brought an UV umbrella or something.
We stopped by this place called "Aung Restaurant" - no idea why we chose but it looked pretty decent.
1000Ks is about US$1. As you can tell, food here is really cheap!
Their dishes are slightly on the oily side and they serve more carbs than protein on their plates (as you can tell from the plate of fried noodles that veggie and noodles forms bulk of the dish whereas there were very few pieces of chicken although the dish was called "Chicken noodles"). Even if the dish came with chicken, they are mostly in small slices.
First, we went to the Sule Pagoda. One thing to note about travelling to Yangon or other parts of Myanmar, bulk of the visiting will be to temples/pagodas. You will have to take off your shoes and wear a sarong if you are in shorts or revealing tops.
So rule of thumb for dressing if you are visiting Myanmar - be conservative in your dressing. Wear long pants/maxi dresses/anything that covers up your legs and it's the same for tops. Forget the tank tops and spaghetti straps. If you are afraid of heat and want to dress little, then always bring a shawl along to cover yourself up. If not you can just pay US$5 (thereabouts) to buy a sarong at the counter and use it for the rest of your trip.
And don't bother with shoes that has laces because you will have to remove your shoes so many times in Myanmar that you may actually go crazy. Just wear slippers, even sandals may annoy the hell out of you after a while!
Yangon City Hall
Sule Pagoda from the other side of the street.
There were many roadside stalls selling funny snacks - some were simple fried dough sticks or fried samosas, some were funky stuff like steamed peanuts with salted fish.
Yup so we went for the weird stuff - that had steamed peanuts and corn with salted fish, some sliced garlic and unidentified slices of seasoned fruits:
There was a nice park nearby so we decided to eat our weird stuff there. We landed in Yangon on a Sunday so understandably the park was fairly crowded - with many families and couples hanging around. This is probably like a popular place to date on a Sunday afternoon, me thinks. It made me thought of J for a while. Hahaha.
PS: The couple in the photo above not doing weird stuff. Just saying.
We walked on, wanting to see The Strand Hotel.
Found a piece of home along the way!
Not entirely sure what 5D experience will offer though...
Turned out we were too tired/hot/disgusting to bring ourselves to the posh and expensive Strand Hotel, we decided to park ourselves at a nice cafe just next to the hotel. It's a pretty nice place called Union Bar and Grill - the prices are still fairly cheap for us but I presume it's too expensive for the locals. All the patrons in the bar were foreigners.
We ordered juices (god sent!) and some bread (because we are cheapos like that).
After we felt well-rested from the intense heat out there, we got out caught a cab and were swiftly on our way to the most famous site of Yangon.
Just a thing to note, cabs in Yangon doesn't run on meters, so you will have to negotiate a price. It's good to do research on general fares of cabs there so you don't get cheated. Phyllis was our chief research lady so she definitely could smell a bad price when she hears one!
What I wanted to capture was Singapore Market somewhere along the streets. It was a standalone building that had many shophouses in there. Too bad we didn't had time to stop by. Would be interesting to find out what they sell there!
Glimpses of the famous Pagoda of Myanmar.
Generally cabbies can't stop you right outside the Pagoda, they will drop you at this tourist centre like place where you will go through security checks and get a sarong if you need one. This is also where you take your shoes off.
There are 4 gates to go into this Pagoda (the entire area is huge). The way up into the Pagoda zone are littered with many souvenirs stores and also snack shops. We stocked up some ice water here.
There you go. The mother of all pagodas in Myanmar, the Shwedagon Pagoda. Unfortunately, it was under a little bit of touch up when we were there and couldn't see it in its full glory. According to Weihao, who came by Yangon a few months earlier for work, he mentioned that the Pagoda was truly breath-taking, especially at sunrise/sunset as the sun shines above the gold exterior of the structure.
If you are pressed for time during your visit to Myanmar and had to visit at least one attraction, visit this one.
We spent almost an hour here walking all gates of the Pagoda before we realized we have to get our asses to the Aung Mingalar bus station to catch our overnight bus to Bagan.
No more photos from this point onwards because it was a mad rush and generally the level of English proficiency amongst locals is not high and we had a little trouble getting there. Another problem we faced while getting there was finding the bus company for our bus - everything was in Burmese! Gosh we were afraid for a moment that we were going to miss the ride and ruin the entire trip (okay I exaggerated a little on ruining the trip).
Thank goodness JJ Express was a popular bus service and it wasn't before long that our "Where JJ?" or "JJ where?" questions to random strangers got us somewhere.
You might think an overnight bus is uncomfortable and all but clearly you have not taken JJ Express. Each bus comes with a bus stewardess who serves you your comfy and clean blanket and assist you on various things. The seats are very comfortable (Business Class size!) and comes with reclining seats. Most foreigners take this bus service when they travel between the cities.
Air tickets are another option but they can be pricey given the flight duration ($easily US$150 for a 30-45min flight). Similar to flight tickets, bus tickets have to be purchased in advance. We bought our JJ Express bus rides for all routes (for entire trip) way before the trip itself. Most routes are around US$20-30. You can buy them online, at least for JJ Express. And I will ONLY recommend JJ Express.
They also stop frequent enough for toilet breaks - they mostly stop at this cafe chain that comes with nice hot food/drinks and most importantly pretty clean toilets. Snack boxes and hot coffee also provided during the midnight break!
The butter cake and cookies were yummy. No kidding.
After the snacks, it was back to snoozing. Next up, Bagan!
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