April 2014 Myanmar (Burma) Travel Tips - Yangon, Bagan, Inle Lake & Mandalay

(Her:  Joanna)

Myanmar is changing rapidly.  Last year, we heard that there was no ATM at all outside of Yangon.  This year, you can find ATM everywhere.  A year and a half ago, cell phone was rare.  People use "paid phone", which is just landline that you pay to use.  This year, we see at least 50% of people we saw on the street in big town such as Mandalay and Yangon using a smartphone.  It is difficult for us when we planned this trip to find the most updated info so we are sharing the info we gathered from this trip when we travel.

Our Itinerary

Day 1 - Arrive Yangon at 11:30 PM

Day 2 - @ Yangon

Day 3 - @ Yangon; Took night bus to Nyaung-U (Bagan)

Day 4 - Arrived Nyaung-U at 4:30 AM; @ Bagan (explored temples)

Day 5 - @ Bagan (explored temples)

Day 6 - Flew to Heho (Inle Lake) from Bagan departed 7ish AM and arrived Heho at 9ish; @ Nyaung Shwe (biked to Winery) 

Day 7 - @ Inle Lake (7:30-15:00) / Nyaung Shwe (biked around town)

Day 8 - Flew to Mandalay at noon; @ Mandalay (walked around town & explored night market)

Day 9 - @ Mandalay (explored market and town; rode to U-bein bridge)

Day 10 - Took day bus to Yangon; Flew out Myanmar back to HK

We felt that we did have sufficient time to explore each city we went but wish we had 4-5 more days to do a trekking trip from Kalaw to Inle Lake, and an opportunity to take a train.  If we had an additional 10 more days, we would love to venture off to the South or North to places with fewer tourists.

General For Myanmar

• Take a jacket with you to long haul buses.  They blast the AC.
• You would have no problem being a vegetarian in Myanmar.  They have a wide variety of salad with the option to add meat or not.  Also, the traditional Burmese meal involve 1 meat dish and a couple of side vegetable dishes (it is quite like Korean in that sense) served with unlimited rice.
• If you travel during the Water Festival (about 7 days) or Burmese New Year (about 4 days), do plan ahead.   We booked our bus and plane ticket ahead through the agency below.  Travellers we met who didn't cannot get any seats trying to arrange it last minute because public transportation don't run for most part during these 2 festivals and on days that they do run around these 2 festivals, the locals also travel through these holidays.  
• Expect to pay 15-30% more for transportation when you travel through these 2 holidays.  We paid 25,000 Kyats for a bus from Yangon to Bagan that other people paid 10-15,000 Kyats at other times.  
• Trains aren't very punctual.  We were to take a train from Mandalay to Yangon supposedly depart at 6 AM arriving at 9:30 PM so we can catch our flight back home departing at 1:10 AM.  The train ended up arriving to Mandalay 1.5 hours late to start with so we ended up given up and took a bus instead.  

·      Yangon

• Joy and Peace (Kay, sandar.joypeace@gmail.com/joyce@mptmail.net.mm, tel: (095-1) 664-442/706-959; 25, Ubaoh street, Quarter(2), Mayangone Township, Yangon, Myanmar: reliable travel agency base in Yangon.  We arrived during Burmese New Year, which is one of the busiest times for locals or international travelers.  They went out of their ways to book tickets/hotels we need and dropped it off at our hostel. Very responsive and reliable when we tried to make the booking via email.  Some stuff you get is cheaper from the agency, some stuff you have to pay more booking through them.
• We stayed at Humble Footprint Hostel for $16 USD per night per person in a 6 people dorm room.  Hostel was clean.  Electricity and wi-fi were stable.  Nice common room with AC to chill but no kitchen.  Don't buy drinks from the hostel.  They cost 2-3 times more than what you can get from the convenient store just at the corner of the street outside of the hostel.  "Finger" is a restaurant <1 min away with good and clean Burmese and Western food for very reasonable price.
• If you want to take buses at Myanmar, it is a great investment to learn to recognize the numbers and how to pronounce them in Burmese.  They use Burmese numerical numbers vs. Roman numerical numbers.  It was quite an adventure for us to take the bus to downtown Yangon from our hostels. Even though the hostel manager wrote us the bus numbers in Burmese, we were unable to recognize the Burmese numbers on the buses.  You have a better bet, if you don’t know Burmese, to ask the bus ticketing guy on the bus who usually hangs out from the back and the front door of the bus.  The public buses cost 200 Kyats per person.
• Long haul bus ride from Yangon we took was 45 minutes away from Shwedagon Paya (close to Humble Footprint Hostel). The bus terminal is relatively close to the airport.  Per travel agent and the manager at our hostel, we can take a bus but it would take 2-3 hours as there are many stops in between (however, we heard from another backpacker that it took her 1 hr to take the bus to the bus terminal).  We took a taxi and it cost us 8000 Kyats.   Thank God we took the taxi as the bus terminal was a huge area full of long haul bus companies and buses.  We would probably get lost trying to find the bus company.
• Though the quality of food is almost always guaranteed at the restaurants recommended in Lonely Planet, they are charging tourist prices relative to what locals are paying for a meal in Myanmar.  Try out some local places.  We usually ate where the local ate (even tried out a salad from a local market, which normally is a big no no), we and a few other backpackers we spoke to didn’t experience any diarrhea.  Of course, use your common sense when picking a restaurant.  A bowl of noodle from street vendor is about 300-500 Kyats; a dish from a restaurant is 1000-3500Kyats; a meal from Feel at Yangon recommended by the Lonely Planet cost 9000 Kyats. 
• Bus ride from Yangon to Bagan cost 15,000 Kyats to 25,000 Kyats.  Long haul buses stopped every 3 hours where you can find food and toilet.  Food at these stops ain’t cheap but toilets are usually free.
• Is Myanmar for solo backpacker?  No, if you have a tight budget.  It is atypical South East Asia countries, transportation and accommodation are not cheap.  There aren’t hostels outside of Yangon that we’ve found at the time of our travel nor there are public transportation between city and airport or long haul bus terminals, so, yes, you have to taxi your way and it ain’t no Bangkok.

Mandalay

• We stayed at Royal City Hotel for $40USD per night.  It was a clean hotel with dated decor but the staff are really sweet and nice.  It is also just 15 minutes walk from the train station so quite convenient if you are traveling by the train. The breakfast cooked in-house was very basic egg and toast western breakfast.  If you want local breakfast, they just buy take out for you at their cost (at the restaurant discussed below).
• It should be noted that the government has lowered the train prices for tourists. Now everyone pays the same price (the local price). Well, this makes every sense as it is almost impossible for the aging train to compete with the modern buses, which are 2 times faster.
• We rented a scooter from Mr. Jerey's on 83rd Street across 26th street for 14,000 Kyats  per day to get around town and to visit U-Bein bridge that is about 11 km out of Mandalay town.  Gas cost 1000 Kyats per litre.  A motorbike is more common if you know how to ride it and it just cost 10,000 Kyats per day.  Helmets included.  It is a bit hectic to drive around town like any other SE Asia big city.  Once you are out of downtown, it gets easier and less nerve racking.  Fill your tank up before you head out of town.  2L was plenty for us to do a round trip to U-Bein and drive around town the whole day.
• With a little negotiation, our back-of-a-truck taxi ride cost 4,500 Kyats from train station to bus station and it took about 20 minutes.  There are plenty just outside of the train station.  If you are traveling solo, consider taking the motorbike taxi.
• If you stay around the Royal City Hotel, definitely try the breakfast from Mohammed on 28th St. between 75th and 74th Street.  You can't miss it.  There are loads of locals there. 

Bagan

• We stayed at Ruby True Hotel booked through Agoda.com for $50 USD per night. The hotel is on the edge of New Bagan. The hotel is a trek away from the town centre, but the bungalow-style room was clean and comfortable. The staff, especially the manager Wawa, are very attentive and friendly.  
• Bike, ebike, and motorbike are all readily available for rent.  If you go during the hottest months between Mar – May, I highly recommend you go with the ebike and motorbike options.  It is quite tough to bike around when you can feel the heat creeping up on you by 9ish and it doesn’t subsides until after 3 PM. The rental shop may tell you the battery lasts for 6 hours, it actually runs out in 3-4 hours.  Have it changed in mid-night when you have lunch and before the night ends/in the morning. 
• Most overnight buses departing from Yangon will get you to Bagan at Nyaung U before the sun raises.  There are plenty (too many) of taxi and horse cart men waiting for arriving tourists, and a tea shop that seems to open 24/7.  You can get tea, coffee, rice with egg and Monhinga (thick fish broth with rice noodle).  Since we needed to go to New Bagan, which is 14km away, we waited out at the tea shop until after sunrise to weigh our transportation options. The taxi drivers and horse cart men asked for 12,000 Kyats for the trip. There are pick-up trucks that the local take.  I approached a few but they can’t really speak English nor they want to take us in because the taxi drivers kept them from picking us up, which is awfully annoying.  We ended up taking a horse cart for the experience for 8000 Kyats after some negotiation (or perhaps all the buses had arrived and the horse cart man just settled with the only business he could get). 
• Surprisingly, in this touristy area, we found some pretty decently priced food.  Like this restaurant packed with locals.
  

Inle Lake & Nyaung Shwe

• There are 5 Markets in the Inle Lake area that they take turns in a 5-day cycle. Here's the most updated market schedule given to us by Aquarius Inn where we stayed. 

• Nyaung Shwe is not a big town.  Here's a town map Aquarius Inn gave us along with some bike routes that are quite enjoyable to explore.

• We stayed at Aquarius Inn booked through Agoda.com for $40 USD per night. Aquarius Inn just added a new building June 2013.  We lucked out getting a room with windows on 3 sides and a private balcony.  Staff doesn't speak much English except for the owner but they were all super friendly.  Breakfast was included, and tea and fruits were served as snack everyday.  Plus, the owner give a small gift at the end of our stay.  

• Bike rental is everywhere asking for 1500 Kyats per day but you can negotiate down to 1000 kyats per day
• We took a flight from Bagan to get to Inle Lake.  The airport closest to Inle Lake is at a town call Heho, which is an hour car ride to Nyaung Shwe (the tourist hub for Inle Lake). All flight stop by Mandalay even if your travel agent didn't say so.  There's no public transportation from the airport to Nyaung Shwe (or anywhere) from what we've been told.  Taxi driver charges 25,000 Kyats (and 30,000 Kyats during high season) if you ask within the airport area.  If arranged with hotel, taxi cost 15,000 Kyats.  The cheap option would be to talk 20min to the main road and flag down a bus or pick-up truck. We could not justify paying 25,000 Kyats, so we told the taxi driver we would only pay 15,000 Kyats or we would walk. Lucky, the taxi driver gave in and agreed to take us for 15,000 Kyats.  
• Beverage price varies a lot from place to place at Inle Lake and Nyaung Shwe.  If you are at or close by touristy places (e.g. on the lake, close by the boat dock, main road by the market at Nyaung Shwe), asking price for a can of coke is 1000 Kyats.  You can find convenient stores who charges 500 Kyats but we haven’t seen lower than that.  If you are on the boat ride at Inle Lake, find a store that is tucked away from the main road for better bargaining power – give them 500 Kyats for a can of coke vs. asking them how much it is was a strategy that worked for us.
• You can find cheap eats in the Market at Nyaung Shwe (but not so great sanitation usually) during the day time or the Night Market just besides the Market with decent sanitation at a few stalls.  You are looking at 4000-6000 Kyats for 2 people for a bbq fish, a salad, a noodle and a bottle of beer vs. restaurants where you'd pay 10,000-15,000 Kyats for 2 people each with an entry and a drink. 
•  @ the Nyang Shwe Market, I highly recommend the only noodle stall in the Market to have a taste of the local Shan Noodle in soup of the Shan State.  It is quite different from Mohinga (rice noodle in thick fish broth) in Yangon and Central Myanmar.  Shan noodle in soup reminds me of Vietnamese Pho.  The texture of the noodle is slightly more chewy than the Vietnamese Pho.  The soup base may not be beef bone but it reminds me of the taste of it.  The soup with chicken tastes better than without it for me but don’t expect big pieces of chicken.

•  @ the Night Market, you can definitely get a taste of the local food.  The food stall we went to was run by a family of 5 and was the cleanest based on how they handled and washed the food.  The cook (the Mom) even wore a new pair of disposable gloves when she prepared the salad dish.