Myanmar - Traveling Thru History

Myanmar Travel Guide

Erin — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 09:58:39 +0000

Years ago, people would have hardly ever considered Myanmar when listing off dream destinations, but since the country has opened itself up to the world, it has become more and more popular as a tourist destination. We really didn’t know what to expect when we went there, so I decided to share what I’ve learned to help other people prepare for their trip. Overall, Myanmar is a really great country. It’s not as developed as the Western world, but it’s still such a fantastic place to visit. As long as you’re prepared for some of the nuances of a less-developed country with a vastly different culture, you will have a wonderful time there. BEFORE YOU GO VISA – You will need a visa to get into Myanmar. A standard single-entry tourist visa costs USD $50, is valid for 90 days and allows a trip length of 28 days. Business visas cost USD $70, are valid for 90 days and allow a trip length of 70 days. Recently Myanmar began accepting online applications for evisas. The evisa application and list of countries who are allowed to apply online can be found here. BRING EXTRA OF ANY NECESSITIES – whether it be something you NEED or something you just prefer, bring extra because finding medical items or comfort/convenience items is not always easy and will sometimes be impossible. If there is an item you MUST have or something you just won’t be happy without, bring a spare just in case. MONEY CURRENCY – The local currency is called kyat (pronounced similar to ‘chat’) and since 2012, the government is pushing for that to be used more than USD. Even so, you will still find places that will accept USD. ATMS & CREDIT CARDS – Myanmar is slowly starting to accept credit cards, but it is not widespread. ATMs are plentiful and some larger business are starting to take credit cards, but still be prepared to pay cash since most smaller shops and street vendors won’t take credit cards. MAKE SURE USD IS PRISTINE – The government won’t allow shopkeepers to trade bills with tears, smudges, creases or any type of imperfection, so the vendors will, in turn, not accept anything except a bill in perfect condition. I took all of our USD and ironed them before going on the trip and that took care of the creases and folds. Also, make sure none of your bills are older than 2006. BRING HARD CASE FOR MONEY – In order to keep your bills in mint condition, be sure to bring a flat wallet or hard case to keep the bills flat and unbent. BILL DENOMINATIONS – For exchanging at local exchange shops, you’ll want larger bills. Those get the best exchange rates. Still bring smaller bills, though, to use for tips and purchases at small shops or eateries. WHILE YOU ARE THERE DON’T DRINK THE WATER! – The water in Myanmar is not suitable for drinking. Water bottles are roughly USD .20, so it’s not too bad to have to buy water. Plus, the three hotels we stayed in were really good about giving us extra water when we left for the day, so be sure to ask your hotel for a bottle or two before heading out. LIMITED INTERNET AND CELL SERVICE – There is no public wifi in Myanmar, so if you need cell or internet service, pick up a SIM card. SIM cards are available at the airport and train stations. If you go to Bagan, you won’t have service even if you buy a local SIM card. The infrastructure of the country is still developing, so only the major cities have semi-reliable cell service. We survived 5 days only having insanely slow wifi in hotel lobbies and not having cell service at all when we were in Bagan, so it’s not hard to get by without it. REMOVE SHOES (AND SOMETIMES SOCKS) AT RELIGIOUS SITES – This is just how it is, no way around it. If you try to wear your shoes, you will be asked to either leave or go back and take your shoes off. This is a pretty big one and some people will get quite offended if you don’t respect their culture and remove your shoes before entering temples and shrines. HAGGLING IS EXPECTED – Unless you are in an actual store with posted prices, the vendors will negotiate with you. Some will drop the price quite a bit and others will only drop it a little. The higher a quantity you buy, the bigger the discount will be. Also, the more friendly and companionable you are, the more willing most of the vendors will be to lower the price. If you’re at a tourist spot and the vendor won’t negotiate, there’s most likely another vendor with similar items nearby. POWER GOES OUT PERIODICALLY – This happened to us every day we were there. Sometimes it was in the afternoon and sometimes in the evening. It was a little disconcerting to have the power go off while I was taking a shower. You may want to bring a flashlight. Sometimes the power only went off for less than a minute and sometimes it was close to 10 minutes. INSIST ON RECEIVING CHANGE IN THE SAME CURRENCY YOU PAID WITH – Since the government is pushing for the exclusive use of kyat, this may not be an issue for much longer, but it still is at the moment. If you pay in USD, make sure you are given USD in change. If they give you kyat instead of USD, you will end up being shorted. US POWER PLUGS – Every hotel we stayed at in Myanmar had US power outlets, so if you are from the US, you don’t need an adapter. If you are not from the US, bring a US-type power adapter. RELIGIOUS SITE DRESS CODE – when you visit any of the temples or religious sites, you will need to wear a shirt with sleeves (cap sleeves are fine) and longer shorts. It is offensive for you to go to their religious sites or enter their temples wearing anything that shows your shoulders or knees (men and women). Some places have cover-ups that you can purchase that are lightweight and have very pretty designs or you could bring something lightweight to throw on before going inside. SUPER DUSTY AND SMOKY – No matter where we went, it was either dusty or smoky. Or both. The locals burn weeds and other things, so you’ll smell a lot of smoke along with all the dust from it being so dry there. The rural areas are the worse, though you’ll still find the smoke and dust in the cities sometimes. If you have asthma or a breathing condition, bring an extra inhaler and/or whatever else you need to manage your condition. Face masks are a good idea, too. We wore ours several times when the dust got really bad. WEATHER – Myanmar has three seasons: hot, not too hot and hot & rainy. The best times to visit are between November and February. Those are the coolest months. We were there at the end of January and it was hot, but not too bad. Rainy season goes from May to October and the super hot time of year is March through May. COSTS FOOD – Food is so cheap there. Tourist hotspots will cost you a several dollars for a meal, but if you go to the smaller restaurants or street vendors, you can get a meal for $1-2. Bottled water is about .20 per bottle. HOTELS – Hotels vary. We got a cheap hotel in Yangon for $25 and it was okay, but the entire place reeked of cigarette smoke. We looked around town and found a place for $40 a night that was really nice and didn’t smell bad at all. In Bagan, we paid $25 a night and were happy with our hotel. It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was comfortable and the staff was really nice. TAXIS – Taxis are pretty cheap. Some use meters and some don’t, but it shouldn’t cost more than $3 to cross the entire town. If the taxi doesn’t want to use a meter, don’t agree to pay more than $3 or 3700 kyat. SOUVENIRS – It depends on the site and the vendor. Some will charge less than $1 for some items while another vendor will charge $1-2 for the same item. Sand paintings are really cool (factory-made) and cost anywhere from $8-16, though if you buy several they’ll give you a discount. BUSES – You can ask your hotel to book a bus for you and arrange for you to be picked up from the hotel or somewhere nearby. Buses that the locals ride are adequate for short distances, but for the longer-distance trips, you’ll want to splurge for the ‘VIP’ bus. That can vary from $15-20 for a 12-hour trip, but it’s worth it. The ‘VIP’ bus comes with reclining seats, televisions, blankets, AC and complimentary meals. FYI MOST SOUVENIR PAINTINGS ARE FACTORY-MADE, NOT HANDMADE – Vendors like to tell people all the paintings are hand-made, but you will find the same ones at every temple. The ones that really are hand-made will be the ones that are unique and the ones where you can see the artists painting them. PAY FOR PICTURES – One of the things we found in Myanmar was that many people who you photograph will ask for money afterwards, even if you ask for permission before. We didn’t understand this at first and a lady yelled at us when we started walking away. Once we figured out what she was upset about, we gave her some money and she was happy. Not everyone will ask for money after you take a photo, but it does happen, especially in more touristy areas. SOMEONE WATCHES YOUR SHOES, THEY EXPECT YOU TO BUY SOMETHING – When visiting temples, it is required for you to take your shoes off. Sometimes vendors will offer to watch your shoes and when you come back, they’ll insist you purchase something since they watched your shoes and kept them safe. SOMEONE GUIDES YOU SOMEWHERE, THEY WILL EXPECT YOU TO BUY/PAY/DONATE – Periodically, someone will offer to show you something ‘really cool’ at whatever tourist place you are currently at and then take you to see it. Vendors want you to purchase something from them. Kids or teens will then try to get you to donate for their schooling or some ‘official’ charity thing that they have a form for. Random adults just want you to pay them for their service. If you have money to spare, go for it. If you are on a tighter budget, it’s best to just decline their offer and say you want to look around on your own. NO NON-SMOKING ROOMS IN THE CHEAP HOTELS – Myanmar doesn’t quite have the same bad view of smoking as the US does. Even though we reserved a non-smoking room in Yangon, we ended up with a heavily smoked in room and the front desk said all their rooms smelled like that when we went to inquire about changing rooms. We found the same response at all the cheaper hotels we contacted. It wasn’t until we contacted some of the mid-range hotels that we were able to find a true non-smoking room. If you absolutely require a non-smoking room, be sure to verify with the hotel that they do indeed have non-smoking rooms. TIPS BRING WET WIPES – the floors in public buildings can be quite dirty, so if you’re in a place where you have to also take your socks off, you will probably want to wipe your feet off before putting your socks and shoes back on. Plus, it’s really hot and dusty there and the wet wipes can be a periodic refresher during the day. WEAR EASILY REMOVED SHOES OR STURDY SANDALS – Pretty much every temple you go to will require you to remove your shoes before entering, so if you plan on going...

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How We Almost Got Stranded in Myanmar

Erin — Fri, 10 Jul 2015 01:15:22 +0000

When visiting a foreign country, an important part of your trip is being able to board the flight when you’re done and return home. You arrive, you enjoy your time and then, when you’re time is up, you go home. But what happens when you can’t go home? That almost happened to us in Myanmar. During our trip around the country we had a really great time. We wandered around Yangon. Flew to Bagan. Visited some amazing temples and ruins. Flew back to Yangon. Rode the Circle Train. And then went to the airport. When we arrived at the airport we had some issues with our bags. Our bags had been right at 7kg when we left and we’d bought a few trinkets, which added a little bit of weight, but not that much. The trinkets we’d bought weren’t all that heavy, maybe 1-2lbs (.45-.9kg), so we just packed our bags to a little over 7kg and put the remaining items in our backpacks before heading off to the airport. Getting to the airport was easy. Our taxi driver was pretty awesome and drove us by the house of Aung San Suu Kyi, the famous Burmese political activist who was put under house arrest for 15 years, before taking us to the airport. Since we had some extra cash and we liked our taxi driver, we gave him all of our extra cash when he dropped us off at the airport. It wasn’t a lot, maybe a couple dollars worth of kyat, but we figured we didn’t need it anymore since we were at the airport to leave the country. haha. Go us. When we got up to the counter the AirAsia people weighed our bags as usual and frowned at the extra half kilo that the bags weighed. That just wasn’t acceptable, they said. We’ve dealt with this before with AirAsia (they’re hit or miss with whether or not they’ll let the extra half kilo slide), so we just said we’d shift the extra bit to our backpacks. No big deal. We’d done this before. And they said okay. So we shuffled things around, put our bags back in the scales and the girl just looks at us. Um, what’s the problem? We had to weigh our backpacks, too. Uh, what? We’ve never had to weigh our bags AND our backpacks before. But, we followed instructions and put our backpacks on the scale, too. Yup. Over 7kg. When the girl insisted we had to check one of our bags, we asked to speak to a manager. That’s not AirAsia policy. But, when the manager came over, he also insisted our bags were overweight and that we had to check them. What the crap? The lady had told us we could shift weight and that would be fine, but now you’re saying it’s the weight of all the bags? That’s messed up. And totally not what the website say. It kinda upset both of us. Especially since my underwear had fallen out of my suitcase in front of a group of Asian men who snickered and scowled. So embarrassing. We tried talking with the guy and getting him to change his mind. We begged and we pleaded because we had no cash and they didn’t take Visa or MasterCard, but he wouldn’t budge. We tried looking up the AirAsia baggage policy to show him we were in compliance, but internet in Myanmar is very unreliable, so all we could do was protest the charge and tell him that we had no way to pay it. During the course of the conversation, after I finally got him to look at me and acknowledge I was there, I made the comment that it wasn’t right to have one policy for flying into a country and another policy for leaving the same country, that the rules should be the same both ways. He said he didn’t understand me, so I rephrased and said it’s a dishonest policy ………………….and that’s as far as I got. Oh. My. Goodness. The guy just about flipped his lid when the word ‘dishonest’ came out of my mouth. He got very offended and said we were very abusive and he couldn’t allow people like us on the flight. He told the girl at the counter not to issue us a ticket even if we paid for the bags and told us we were not allowed on the flight. This really shocked both of us because nobody had raised their voice, nobody had been argumentative, nobody had been remotely angry. Troy had been a few steps away going through his bag looking for money and just stood there with his mouth open. He looked at me and said, “Wait, what? What just happened?” When I told him we’d been kicked off the flight he tried talking with the guy to figure something out and the guy just said no and started walking away. Before he left Troy asked if there was someone else we could talk to and he said, “I am AirAsia and you can only talk to me.” He said how dare I call him a liar and say he is a dishonorable man. And then he left. So there we were, kicked off our flight with no other flight counters open and nobody else to appeal to. Since we didn’t know what else to do we just hung out by the ticket counter and watched other people get their tickets. We were both kinda freaking out because we couldn’t buy a ticket from another airline, we couldn’t get a taxi, we couldn’t get a hotel and our phone wasn’t working. We were very, very stuck. After a few minutes we started going through our bags again, looking for money. We figured if we could somehow convince the guy to let us back on the flight we would just check the dang bags and be done with it. After about half an hour the guy came back to the counter and when he was walking away I stopped him. I figured part of his issue was that I was a female and Burmese culture puts women as silent observers while the men were the power players, so I decided to just go with it. I apologized profusely and told him I hadn’t meant to offend and I was very sorry what I said had been rude. I told him that in America we are used to calling attention to things we view as incorrect and our culture is a lot more blunt. I explained that I wasn’t calling HIM a liar or saying HE was dishonest, just that I was disagreeing with a company policy and had misspoken. I told him I should not have been so belligerent, even though I hadn’t even been remotely obstinate, but whatever. I just wanted to get on the plane and go home. Thankfully, it worked. The guy finally said if we could pay the baggage fees we could get on the plane. He also said to me, “A country’s character is shown in the way it’s citizens speak to each other.” I wasn’t sure if he was trying to be a snot or not, so I just smiled and went back to gathering my bags. Thankfully we’d found some ringgit in my bag. I’d brought extra ringgit in my carry-on in case Troy’s cards get lost, but had forgotten I had it. It wasn’t enough to pay for both bags, but the guy booked our bags as 1 large bag at 25kg instead of the 2 bags at 20kg and took every last ringgit we had. Then, about five minutes later, he gave us our tickets and we ran for the gate. Our flight was boarding in 30 minutes and we didn’t want anything else to keep us from getting on it.

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She Myet Hna

Erin — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 20:43:46 +0000

She Myet Hna is one of the 2,200 Buddhist temples, stupas, payas and pagodas that still remain of the 10,000+ that were built in Bagan, Myanmar. While most have are in ruins or disrepair, this one has been preserved and restored. We actually found this temple by accident. One of the modes of transportation in Bagan is the bicycle. We rented our bikes from our hotel, Thante Nyaung U, and rode off in search of some of the temples. As you can see, our hotel wasn’t too far from Old Bagan. Old Bagan is the section inside the blue lines on the left side of the picture. It took us maybe 20-30 minutes to bike back to the hotel once we were done for the day. When we took off from the hotel we were actually looking for Shwezigone Temple, but we took a wrong turn somewhere and when we rounded the corner we found this one. There are a lot of streets not marked on maps and we got lost several times. It wasn’t too bad, though, because getting lost in Bagan just means you find more temples you weren’t expecting. Being that She Myet Hna was the first temple we saw I figured that it should have the honor of being the first Bagan temple I wrote about. Not much is known about She Myet Hna. The locals say it has been there as long as they can remember, but nobody knows how old it is, what prompted it to be built or if She Myet Hna is its original name. The history of it isn’t important to them, they just know it was built as a place of worship and reflection. To them, it’s just another one of the religious sites that cover the land. Another face in a crowded room that showed up one day and nobody knows why. Maybe someday someone will unearth a hidden text that names all the temples and explains what their purpose was. Maybe one day we will know why so many religious structures were built in the same area. Maybe one day we will truly understand what Bagan really means. We did find a placard with writing on it, but haven’t been able to find someone who can translate it. Does this tell the history of this temple? Does this explain more about Bagan? Perhaps it does. It’s actually driving me a little crazy to not know what this says. Perhaps it just explains a bit about Buddhism or maybe it just talks about the restoration of the temple. I really wish someone could tell me. This is a dvarapala. They are guardians set to protect the holy place inside the temple. Since She Myet Hna is small and has no real interior, prayers are done from the individual doorways and this dvarapala protects from outside the temple. One of the nice things about Bagan is that there are many places to get water. These are communal drinking basins. You just take the plate off the top, get yourself a cup of water and then place the cup upside down on the plate over the top of the ceramic basin. While it’s nice for locals, I wouldn’t recommend drinking the water from places like this. This water is usually from nearby lakes or streams and isn’t filtered or treated. Modern day Buddhist graffiti. It’s sad that someone would deface the temple, but I do have to admit it’s a pretty good drawing. These figure are known as deva statues. When King Anawratha was crowned in 1044 AD he began unifying the kingdom of Burma and instituted Theravada Buddhism as the national religion. In order to appease local cults and ensure peace, King Anawrath adopted nats and devas into the Buddhist culture. Buddhism revolves around the concept of reincarnation, but offshoot branches believe that violent deaths prevent a person from being reincarnated, thus their spirit roams and becomes dangerous to the living. Burmese Buddhism believes that these statues are a place where those spirits can dwell and be somewhat at peace. These guys are known as leogryphs or chinthe. Chinthe are almost always depicted in pairs and serve to protect the pagoda. They typically appear as animals, but are sometimes found with human faces. Why do chinthe guard temples and pagodas? Well, according to legend, a princess and a lion fell in love and were married. They had a son, but the princess eventually abandoned the lion who became enraged and began terrorizing the lands. When the princess’s son grew up, he sought out and killed the lion in an effort to protect the people. It was only after the prince returned and told his mother what he’d done that he found out he had killed his own father. To atone for his sin, the prince constructed a statue of a lion to stand as guardian of the local temple and thus the tradition began. The chinthe is revered and loved by the Burmese people and is used symbolically on the royal thrones of Burma. Predating the use of coins for money, brass weights cast in the shape of mythical beasts like the chinthe were commonly used to measure standard quantities of staple items. And ever since the creation of modern currency in Myanmar there have been chinthe on the bills and the coins.

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Sule Pagoda

Erin — Mon, 22 Jun 2015 03:17:11 +0000

In the geographical and religious center of Yangon, Myanmar, is a site that holds importance for both religious and political groups. It is as ancient as it is important to the Myanmar people. The site is Sule Pagoda, a 2,500-year-old Burmese Stupa shrouded in legend. According to Burmese legend, the site where Sule pagoda now stands was once the home of a powerful spirit named Sularata. The king of the spirits, Sakka, wished to help the legendary Burmese King Okkalap build a shrine for the Buddha’s sacred hair-relic on the same site where three previous Buddhas had buried sacred relics in past ages. Unfortunately, these events had happened so long ago that not even Sakka knew where they were buried. Sularata, however, was so old that he had witnessed the past events and was able to tell King Sakka where the three previous Buddha relics had been buried. Thus, instead of just housing one Buddha relic, the Sule Pagoda site houses four. When we visited Sule Pagoda, we didn’t know what to expect. We arrived in Myanmar, stowed our stuff at the hotel and immediately set out to explore. We got in a taxi and asked the driver what he recommended and he brought us to Sule Pagoda. He said this was one of the most important pagodas to the Burmese people. The first thing we saw when we arrived at the pagoda was a group of women sitting on the ground with baskets. Our taxi driver told us the birds symbolize the captivity of the Burmese people endured for centuries and that releasing them is a symbol of hope for the continued peace and freedom of the people. We all know things aren’t that great in Myanmar, but it has improve and things are continuing to improve, so there is hope for continued improvement and with that thought we purchased two birds. Troy got a little confused and thought the birds were a snack, but I quickly set him straight. After paying for our tickets we took our little birdies to the furthest corner of the complex and set them free. Yes, they are most likely trained to return to the bird women, but we like to imagine our birds flew far away and remain free. Once we’d set our birds free (where they flew far away and lived happily by a small river) we began wandering around. One of the interesting features of Sule Pagoda is the pagoda itself. It is believed to have been built before the other famous pagoda in Yangon, Shwedagon Pagoda, making it over 2,500 years old. The pagoda itself was constructed using the basic form utilized in Indian architecture, but the embellishments and final design are of a Mon-style Burmese influence. The main pagoda is octagonal in shape. Each side is 24 feet long and the pinnacle reaches 144 ft 9 l/2 in. While the pagoda itself is about 2,500 years old, none of the other structures in the complex is more than just over 100 years old. Several image houses surround the pagoda and house a variety of Buddha statues. There are also Buddha statues along the walls of the complex. A few of the covered prayer areas. There are several of these Buddha shrines surrounding the pagoda. I asked one of my students at the Myanmar Refugee School in Kuala Lumpur what the characters said and they told me that each of these shrines around the pagoda has a day of the week and a person washes the Buddha and prays to the Buddha that represents the day they were born. Next to the Buddha shrine is a bell. There are ten of these and each one is a different size, age and style in commemoration of large donations made to the upkeep of the pagoda complex. The grey box on the opposite side of the shrine is for people to make smaller donations. Someone saw us admiring this and told us that prayers go in the bird and are taken along the cable to the top of the pagoda where they are received and delivered to the Buddha. There were other things we saw around the complex that we don’t know what they mean or what they are used for, but they look neat.

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Photo Essay: Sunset From A Forgotten Monastery

Erin — Fri, 29 May 2015 20:41:58 +0000

On our first day in Bagan, Myanmar, we spent a lot of time riding our bikes from temple to temple. We thought it was the best experience ever and didn’t think there was anything that could surpass it. But then we were talking to a shop keeper at one of the tourist stalls in front of Ananda Temple and he said that we should come back there at sunset. Well, why?, we asked. We’d already seen the temple in the daylight. Why would we want to come see it in the dark? That’s when he told us that we could get a wonderful view of the sunset from the top of the monastery just beyond the temple. and that it’s a popular tourist activity. We were floored. We had never even considered watching a sunset from one of the temples. But now, now we were determined that nothing was going to stop us from doing so. Being able to watch a sunset from the top the ruins of an ancient monastery is an experience like none other. I’m kinda sad that nobody knows the name of the monastery (and that for some inexplicable reason I have no photos of it), but that didn’t detract from the experience at all. Kind of makes it seem a little mysterious. We got to the temple earlier than the vendor recommended, which ended up being a good thing. There weren’t a ton of people there, but soon after we got there a few buses showed up. While we were waiting for the magic to start, we began talking with the people around us and listening to their stories. It was fun being able to joke with other travelers and hear about their interesting experiences. I really loved how happy and excited everyone was to be there. While we waiting for the sun to go down, we were also taking pictures of the landscape. All those temples and everything around the monastery was just breathtaking. Once the sun started going down, everyone glued themselves to their cameras. Those of you who know me know that I try to get photos of myself and Troy at each of the places we visit. One of our new friends noticed we were setting up to take a selfie and kindly offered to take a photo of us. I think it turned out quite nicely. Once the sunset was over and we made our way back to our bikes, we rode past a grouping of stupas. With the light fading behind them, it appears as though they are guardians of the land and protectors of the Bagan culture. Stay strong, mighty warriors. There’s still a long fight ahead.

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