A few weeks before our trip to Myanmar, I told my cousin Ellen that I had been inspired to put the country at the top of our list after watching Anthony Bourdain traipse around Bagan. “Yeah, but on which show?” she asked. “No Reservations, or are we talking Parts Unknown?”
It was definitely Parts Unknown. And Myanmar, though tourism has skyrocketed since it expanded its tourist visa program in 2014, is still a place mostly unknown to the rest of the globe. I have never been to a country so isolated from the contemporary developed world, and after witnessing the influx of Westernization during our travels, I suspect I never will again. Everyone we’ve met who had been urged us to go, and NOW. I seriously had a conversation with someone after we first moved to Singapore who told me that Myanmar would be barely worth visiting in December, since that was the month they were opening up visas to an expanded list of countries.
But I don’t believe that travel is a race, and I have become wary of people who tell you that places are spoiled and that you really should have been there a decade ago. Sure, there’s a lot of terrible scorched-earth development in Southeast Asia, but this attitude glorifies a past that isn’t always rosy. (I’m in Cambodia right now and this particularly irks me here. “You totally should have been here right after the genocide, it was sooo cheap!”)
But ethics are often muddled out here anyway. Is it even ethical to travel to Myanmar, where the majority of our tourist dollars will at best, support a crony-based system in which forced labor is used to create infrastructure, and at worse, prop up a ruling party currently carrying out a genocide? Similarly, should we call Myanmar “Burma,” a name assigned by British colonizers? Or “Myanmar,” a name that an abusive military junta decided on instead?
You probably just want to read about our trip here. But like so much of Southeast Asia, the more you get to know a place, the more confusing things become. All I can say is that while this trip was not always easy or even pleasant, I think it will endure as our most memorable.
YANGON
We arrived in Yangon on Christmas Eve, and before we even left the airport, we were surrounded by Burmese people in traditional dress: longi (sarongs tied differently depending on gender) and white-yellow thanaka face paint (mostly on women and children). A full outfit of western clothes is rare to be seen, even here in the capital city.
One taxi ride later, we were checked into our guesthouse which is also a cycle shop: Bike World B&B, part of a Christmas surprise I planned for Andrew. The other part of the surprise is that the owners (a Burmese woman and Australian man) have a golden retriever! I’d seen photos online and Andrew quickly bonded with his new Burmese buddy. Goldens are uncommon out here in Asia, so this was a little Christmas miracle.
The guesthouse was near the university area and Lake Inya, made famous as the neighborhood in which politician Aung San Suu Kyi was held in house arrest for 15 years. We watched the sunset from the lake shore with hundreds of local picnickers (every single sunset and sunrise we saw in Myanmar was amazing) before hopping in a cab to downtown Yangon, braving the chaotic traffic full of drivers sitting on the left and driving on the right. (How can they see anything?!) We ate at simple vegetarian Indian restaurant that our guidebook recommended for dinner. While we’re probably more adjusted to local foods out here than regular tourists, we’d been vigorously warned against street food in Myanmar, where sanitation can be “variable.”
After dinner, we walked to a cocktail bar called Blind Tiger, which offered a welcome sanctuary from the din outside. Unexpectedly for a country of over 90% Buddhists, the bar was fully done up for Christmas, with twinkly lights, Nat King Cole crooning, and eggnog specials. It hadn’t really felt like the holidays for me in Singapore, so this is the first time I felt truly festive. The bartending staff was delighted that actual celebrants had found their way in, and poured us an extra round. Back at the guesthouse, our hosts had left us a special homemade Christmas fruitcake. Overall we both cite this as one of our favorite nights of our time abroad.
The next day (Christmas!) was our full day in Yangon. We headed back downtown to the enormous Bogyoke Market, one of the largest and most lively of all Asian markets we’ve experienced out here. First thing’s first, we purchased and donned two longi. I also bought a jade ring that I love, which might be fake, but only set me back about fifty cents.
We then strolled to Sule Pagoda and to Maha Bandula Park, which is where we swiftly became celebrities. It’s rare that locals ask for a picture with us in Southeast Asia, especially given that we both have dark hair and eyes. (Blonde or red-haired travelers I’ve met are still mobbed, often not by locals but by Chinese tourists.) But Yangon is a place where many Burmese people from non-tourist areas travel for family or business, and Westerners are still an exciting sight. One group of women asking for pictures turned into two groups, then three, then a line started forming…
In making our escape and begging Christian obligations, we ran into a historic cathedral next to the park. We sat down for part of a Burmese Christmas mass that, in Andrew’s words, featured new words to the same great tunes.
After mixed success in tracking down a few contemporary art galleries around Yangon, we ended the day at the Shwedagon Pagoda, which for me was one of the highlights of our trip. The massive golden stupa towers over the city almost like the Eiffel Tower, and it did not disappoint in person. We joined hundreds of other Burmese people and monks to circle the tower barefoot and in longis. At one point, we were flagged down by a very eager class of university students who asked if we would practice English with them. These sort of interactions were very common everywhere we went in Myanmar and also allowed us to learn a lot about local life, though they always ended with us having to make excuses to end the session!
We exited through the gigantic Peoples Park and watched another impressive red sunset. That night, we walked to a neighborhood Indian restaurant that was highly recommended by our guesthouse. For some reason they sat us in our own private room. Our Christmas dinner was a tandoori feast, and probably the best meal of the trip.
MANDALAY
After surviving our first domestic flight experience the next morning—surprisingly nice, small planes supplied by government cronies, but weird boarding processes involving passengers donning color-coded stickers—we had a long, hot taxi ride into downtown Mandalay. Our hotel was nothing special, but came with air con and a private bathroom: the toilet directly under the showerhead, all in the same tiny tiled room. Yay? After a quick lunch at a café, we hired a taxi driver for the rest of the day for an epic lineup of temples including the Royal Palace, Kuthodaw Pagoda, and my favorite, the wooden Shwenandaw Monastery. Many of these sights appear in a novel that Andrew and I both read—The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh—which I highly recommend if you like historical fiction.
The day ended with a long, sweaty, barefoot climb to the top of Mandalay Hill, passing through dozens of small temples along the way, where we were rewarded with awesome sunset views, beautiful mirrored and tiled shrines, and… more students requesting English lessons! One of the final temples on the climb was called Snake Pavilion, and it lived up to its name when a black snake appeared and began climbing the stairs alongside worshippers and tourists. Several of the female vendors selling snacks snapped into action and began rushing the snake with their brooms, eventually “sweeping” the snake off the side of the temple onto the cliffs below.
The day ended on a somewhat annoying note when we had to argue with our taxi driver over payment despite setting a price earlier, and then he angrily refused to take an American bill that had a tiny, and I mean tiny, tear in one corner. As we learned, anything other than absolutely pristine American money is not accepted. But, we made up for it with a cosy dinner at a nearby expat haunt, enjoying the first Western food of the trip. (I’m pretty sure my burger had yogurt on it as a condiment, but hey.)
IRRAWADDY RIVER
Following a very early wakeup call and taxi to the jetty, we boarded a small riverboat for our 9-hour float down the Irrawaddy River to Bagan. We could have taken a bus or flown, but we’d heard that traveling by boat was a good way to see life outside of the tourist areas. There were probably 20 other tourists on the boat (the locals take a cheaper open-air boat) and we claimed chairs on the top deck, though we also had seats in the air-conditioned cabin. After watching the sunrise as we pulled out of Mandalay, we were served a breakfast of boiled eggs, tea, and toast. The first part of the trip was the most scenic, as we passed towns on the hillside with golden stupas and farms with animals and villagers down on the riverbanks. Scenic, but it was clear that there was serious poverty in these rural areas.
Some hours later, lunch was fried rice, veggies, fruit, and tea. The afternoon moved more slowly as we mostly passed muddy riverbanks, but many podcasts, books, and card games later, we caught our first exciting glimpse of the temples of Bagan in the distance. It was unclear how far away our guesthouse, Thante Nyaung U Hotel, was from the jetty, so we paid a few dollars for a “taxi”… which was a horse-drawn carriage. As you may recall from my Cambodia post, Andrew apparently has a severe horse allergy. He sneezed for the rest of the night and even broke out in hives from where he touched the reigns. Neigh to more horse carts. We turned in early to get up the next morning well before sunrise– a theme for almost every day of the trip.
BAGAN
Our two full days in Bagan followed the same schedule: wake up in the dark, hop on electric scooters and zip into the plain, catch sunrise over 2,000 temples, roam around exploring, back to town for lunch, naps, a swim, and re-charging the bikes, then back out around 4 PM for more temples and sunset, and an early dinner in town. You could do this for weeks and not see all of the temples, each of which is very guarded by a family that will often appear out of nowhere to unlock it for you. Once unlocked, ditch your shoes at the door, grab your flashlight, and explore. Often the guardians function as friendly guides, pointing out interesting wall paintings or staircases to the roof for a view (for a small tip).
It’s a very different experience than Angkor Wat: individually, the brick stupas and temples aren’t as impressive, but taken as a whole and given the absolutely unreal scale, you can spend the day almost by yourself. There are some more notable and important temples that we visited alongside tour groups, and the sites known for sunrise/sunset get crowded as well. But given that most of the temples are off tiny dirt lanes where nary a Chinese tour bus can travel, the overall experience is far more peaceful (albeit super dusty).
Unsurprisingly, this free-wheeling approach is likely to change, and soon. From a conservation perspective, this is wise. But it really was special to jet around on our own bikes, clambering around stupas and discovering little gems along the way.
INLE LAKE
Our third morning in Bagan, we hopped another flight to the mountain town of Heho (have I mentioned that this entire trip comprised EIGHT plane flights?!) where we were greeted by the usual taxi touts. One man approached to discuss fares to Nyaung Shwe, which is the gateway to Inle Lake and about an hour’s drive. Did we want a $20 taxi, or a $25 taxi? “Um… a $20 taxi?” we replied. With that, he tossed our bags in the back of a pick-up truck and indicated that we should climb in after them. This is a pretty common way to travel around Asia, but it was our first time riding on a wooden bench on the back of a truck. No, it’s not safe. But it is fun! And it had the added benefit of fresh air, which was a great anti-nausea remedy to a long drive on twisty and bumpy mountain roads. (Motion sickness is my constant challenge as we travel. Sea Bands, sponsor this blog!)
While we were planning this trip, my former MoMA colleague and work bestie Scott was planning his own Southeast Asia trip during his business school winter break. At some point, we realized that of all places, we were both going to be in Myanmar at the same time. This is how I happily reunited with Scott at a café in Nyaung Shwe. It also ended up being incredibly lucky that we met up, since we later came to believe that at said café Andrew ate something that would violently disagree with him for the rest of our time in Inle, and Scott became my new sightseeing buddy.
Nyaung Shwe doesn’t have much to recommend it, though the giant market was one of the liveiest and least touristy we’ve seen in Asia. From there, we hopped on our first longboat up the lake to our hotel. Since it was New Year’s Eve the next night, we had decided to splurge by staying on the lake, which is huge and absolutely beautiful. Again, this turned out to be a lucky coincidence, as Andrew would have been pretty miserable condemned to a shared bathroom at a guesthouse…
After settling into the hotel, the three of us hopped on bikes and rode about an hour along the lakeside to a winery. Yes, really: Myanmar produces surprisingly decent wines. And the views didn’t hurt!
We all turned in early in anticipation of a long day of sightseeing in the morning, but Andrew’s night didn’t go exactly as planned. Throughout all of our travels, this has been the one time that one of us was really ill. It was pretty scary thinking about worst-case scenarios, given our location. Thankfully, the worst was over by mid-morning, so Scott and I decided to head out to explore Inle Lake anyway, by hiring a boat for the rest of the day. YOLO.
After a long day sightseeing on the water, we spent the tamest New Year’s Eve ever at the hotel, all of us exhausted. The next day we said our goodbyes to Scott and reversed the long journey back to Singapore: taxi, plane, plane, plane, and taxi. (If I had planned this trip now, I would have ended with time in Yangon to cut down on the extra flight!)
This was definitely one of those trips where you need a vacation after your vacation (especially poor Andrew, battling horse allergies and food poisoning). It took me literally weeks and weeks to plan and it wasn’t easy to find a middle ground between dorm-room backpacking and ultra-luxury travel. In Bagan, for instance, options for housing ranged from $15 to $1,500 a night with very little in between.
But I am so glad we spent the time to really travel around Myanmar and see the beautiful countryside, overwhelming number of temples, and unique local life, which is changing so rapidly. It’s an enourmous and diverse place, and still stands far apart from the rest of Southeast Asia. I say grab your backpack, alarm clock, some Immodium, and see it for yourself.
one degree north 