Travel to Asia

Lonely Planet Myanmar (Burma)

Format: Paperback
Author: Robert Reid
ReleaseDate: 30 November, 2005
Publisher: Lonely Planet Publications
Rating:

A traveling companion you will most likely need...
While there are some parts that are out of date, prices a little inaccurate in some respects, and missing information regarding routes and transport means (they advise a trip from one town when the bus actually leaves the town before and only stops if in the next town it's not full), for the most part it's a decent guide book, and you'll want something like that if you're traveling around a good deal of the country. If you're going to Myanmar you will want a good guidebook, this one does the job more than adequately.

With the politics it's your choice. As the other reviewer said, they make enough money trading with China and India, yours really is a drop in the bucket. . . that doesn't stop the government charging you 10 times the local price for many services though! The guidebook offers useful suggestions on minimizing giving money to government run services and I would suggest you spend local as much as possible. A trip to Myanmar is educational, enjoyable and I believe that most of the locals want you to come and they will welcome you with open arms. For the most part they really enjoy the opportunity to meet with and interact with foreigners.

The other thing is I would suggest not to be a Lonely Planet Tourist. By that I mean only eating and staying at LP recommended places and doing LP recommended excursions. You'll have a better time, I guarantee you. I can't count the number of times I asked someone where they were staying. . . 'I'm staying at the Royal' [or other name] which was No. 1 on the LP list of recommendations (and loaded with other tourists). Another time in Bagan, I walked down the street and there's nobody at any of the cafes. . . and about 100 backpackers at the only LP recommended restaurant! You're not necessarily going to get sick by eating somewhere else (you mostly have as much chance as an LP reviewed restaurant) and there are many, many, other fine restaurants and places to stay. Some of the LP places that were recommended as good were truly horrific and I found others not in the book for better prices and much higher standards, and still travelers go for the LP recommended place. Find and befriend a local and talk with them and ask them questions, you'll be glad you did. You'll meet more people, see things you wont see in the guide book and eat foods you would never have tried. A friend and I went bike riding the back streets of a small town and were invited into a wake. . . which was really a celebration and we sat down to talk with the locals and enjoyed some of the finest food I think of our entire trip.

I stayed at some amazing places, met some wonderful people in towns where there was no LP recommendation for guesthouses and in found in Yangon one of my favorite guest houses in South East Asia (also not in the book), the owners of both places really touching my heart with their generosity and spirit (they went out and bought food for me because I'm vegetarian among other things) one even gave me a gift which was a wooden game (they give it to all guests I think that stay a few nights) with a little card inside 'I hope that you can travel overseas and see a new country every year' - how's that for heart touching.

Some points to note that aren't really in this book. With currency, the guidebook makes some off the cuff type remark 'don't expect to change any worn or tattered notes'. . . and I thought I've traveled all over Asia, so I knew what that meant. WRONG. Myanmar has a standard unlike ANY place in Asia. You can watch in horror (I took mostly $US100 bills to get a better exchange rate) as they hold your bill up to the light and reject it for having. . . . a 1mm nic in the corner (I'm serious), and you take it somewhere else and they do the same. You cannot use credit cards there save a few hotels in Yangon (and you have to stay the night at $150US to do so) and travelers cheques also are accepted in few places, and at a 20% discount. Without exception, the travelers I came across were - shocked - at how picky locals were with notes, even the government run places and services (they too will reject them should there be ANY potential defect and ask you for another - LP says you can often palm them off in government run places and services, this is rarely true).

So that I make it absolutely clear (the guide book doesn't):

You must take BRAND NEW $US bills with no smudging or worn fold marks in the middle, no nicks or indents on the sides and absolutely no writing or pen marks on the notes if you want no problems. Higher valued notes get better exchange rates.

(With smudging, I'm talking a note a few years old that has been folded many times and in any other country you wouldn't give a second thought to using them - you simply wont believe how people look over your notes). I heard horror stories of people having a bank in Thailand stamp all their notes (and they were all rejected in Myanmar). Be careful when changing also on the black market where people offer you a substantially better rate (most of the time, they will cheat you by taking money back, short changing you or something like that - it's like some places in Bali, some changers offer you a better rate but then short change you and if you pick it up they then want to add a commission, i. e. you will NOT get the rate that's advertised under any circumstances, it's a bait) and NEVER change at the airport (50% discount to the market rate). If you have problems, ask your concierge if they're good, they'll probably know someone who can change it for you (I seriously was facing a prospect of going to a major hotel looking for an American departing the country to change my notes that I thought were perfect - and I've traveled extensively in developing Asia).

Traveling can be hard (there are long distances, mostly early starts (5am ish), and transport can be bumpy and in some cases dangerous on very old vehicles with drivers that have little regard for their own lives let alone that of others (I'm talking accelerating into corners and driving blind around them in old vehicles) - ask a good hotel and befriend the concierge, they know the routes and forms of transport that are most dangerous (some for instance have deadlines where they have to be there at a certain time to turn around with another load of passengers and there are often accidents).

Internet is also non-existant outside of the 2 major cities and is so slow in most places in Mandalay its hardly worth using (I'm talking sometimes 10-20 minutes for a page to load). Moreover, the government blocks access to Yahoo and Hotmail (not Gmail) although some internet places have software that connects to external servers and you can access hotmail and yahoo through them. Also, you need to check current information for instance to go to the top of the country as you need to apply for permits in Yangon and wait (up to two weeks) for authorisation to go there, something that may not be practical to arrange if you've already arrived.

A journey to Myanmar is rewarding and enjoyable. The people are wonderful the country is beautiful and the food is excellent, not to mention cheap. If you can, try help out, buy some books for a school or a Buddhist monastery. Or go to one of them and just speak English so that the students there can hear native speakers. They pretty much only have old issues of many magazines and books there (dictionaries that can be 30 years old) and what is gratifiying to see is that they really love to read and learn and are very keen to do so - but you have to be careful about bringing that stuff in.

You'll find the LP guide to Myanmar a very handy reference, I just advise against using it as a bible. If you only go to accommodation listed in the top few for each town you will often stay in mediocre places (some of whom increase their price after an LP listing), miss out on the some of the best food and sometimes trade off lame entertainment (eg. the Moustache Brothers who had a whole half page write up in the LP and I heard not one good review from travellers) at the expense of truly unforgettable experiences.

I hope you enjoy your trip to Myanmar as much as I did.
.

A very good book
I purchased it as my sole guidebook. OK, ignoring all the strange hype and anti-hype over going to Myanmar (my in-laws live there), this is a good book. Although some of my local guides had a few words of disparagement for some of the restaurant recommendations (they said they were years out of date), it was otherwise a useful tool. If you are going to Burma, buy this book. Really, you'll find it handy.

As for supporting the regime with tourist dollars, don't be silly. They get all the support they need from China - they don't need your money. Staying home in a snit won't change a single thing that happens for the better. And it may make things worse.

Response to pepper "pepper".
Uhmmm. . the name Buck Naked comes from the "Seinfeld" show. It is the artist name George would use if he were a porn actor. . .
Are you grimly serious with everything? Not a happy life, I imagine.

Of course slave labor isn't needed to improve infrastructure. I'm not saying I'm OK with that, it is a shame to humanity that it still takes place!
And of course the international community needs to take action, but not by depriving ordinary Burmese of their daily needs through a boycott. And certainly not by sending in Mad Man Bush's troops!
If you read carefully, I stated that ways of avoiding donating cash to the military include staying at independently owned guesthouses. Avoid luxury hotels, as they are probably owned by companies in cahoots with the military. Don't buy Total gas and don't breathe deeply when eating a really dry biscuit!

Small list of other places to avoid: North Korea, Belarus, most countries in Central Asia, half of South America and the state of Texas. And what about Graceland?

Myanmar? I'm still going. And I have raised the stakes to 5 stars.

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