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Published: August 19th 2007
Myself and my 3 friends flew Air Bagan from Bangkok to Yangon on a nearly empty A-310, where I was the only white person! This is a new airline in Burma that just launched international flights, one per day!, to bangkok. There was almost noone in the "foreigners" immigration line at Yangon airport. We paid for most of our flights in advance (well, brian paid for mine, i still owe him money!) because of the cash issue I discussed previously.
at the airport the exchange rate is $1 = 450 kyats. This is the official gov't rate. Luckily we knew better than to change money there, and we found a nice taxi driver who took us to a sketchy little building, someone's house, to change money at the real rate, $1 - 1250 kyats. The taxi driver said only one of us could go in, but that seemed a little scary, so Tom and I both went in. it took us THIRTY minutes to change $400, $100 each, because as mentioned on a picture comment, the biggest note there is 1000 kyat, yes less than $1. We counted everything and swapped about 50 ripped or just really old notes. especially
Quiet Life in Bagan
Ox carts are a common scene here. smaller ones which are in REALLY bad shape becuase the gov't doesn't make them anymore, they only make 1,000 notes these days. i'm not sure what their long term plan is, to have only 1,000 notes? i told tom to take a picture, and he secretly took one but when the woman saw the flash she was NOT happy, since she didn't want her picture taken changing money. the taxi driver was so nice, and he was right in there helping us count the money which i found somewhat funny but for some reason, we knew we could trust him. we had about 3 black bags of money at the end, all of which i shoved into my backpack.
The same afternoon we caught a "yangon airways" flight to Bagan, further north. the domestic departure terminal was ghe-tto! they have very few of anything but prop planes in this country, i mean the Air Bagan fleet only has 2 jet planes and it's an international airline! they don't even pretend to have any sort of safety situation or security here - in fact it's the only country i've been where they don't check any ID (if not for security,
just to make sure you didn't steal someone's ticket???) Actually, who cares if you stole someone's ticket because all the tickets here are hand written, as is the manifest, i have no idea how they keep it straight. well, sometimes they don't. the gov't airline had a crash a few years back and teh passenger list could never be produced!
we got "the myanmar light", gov't produced english newspaper, and i thought the war museum in hanoi was bad for gov't propaganda! this was jsut PURE entertainment. at LEAST half the paper was a draft of part of the constitution, which supposedly the gov't promised the people and have been working on for something like 8 years, so they obviously just keep trying to show that they're making progress.
there is nothing even remotely called a baggage check in Burma, literally the men load up a cart on the runway, then manually walk each bag out to the check-in area, and you just have to watch for your bag. there isn't any sort of designated baggage area, it can be confusing. Right at the airport they got us - the gov't that is - there is technically a
Foreign Locals
All the locals were laughing at us in our horse cart because foreigners don't usually pack themselves in so tightly...we had six including driver and "guide", most foreigners only go with two ppl per cart. $10 gov't fee to enter the bagan area (which is the land of thousands of stupas, their version of angkor wat and the biggest attraction in myanmar). we had thought maybe we could avoid it, but they forced us to buy it at the airport. those terrible ppl! Hui, Tom, and Brian, had this master plan to pass for burmese, as they're all asian. but then there was me! i don't blend in quite so much. (on the last day when they were in yangon w/o me they wore their longyis and just walked into the famous stupa there and didn't have to pay the tourist fee! boy, were they proud of themselves! i was clearly holding them back).
the initial drive into bagan was STUNNING - there are litreally 4,000 stupas here of all different shapes, sizes, colors, etc. all set against sort of quiet, peaceful farmland, greenery, with the river in the distance. it's VERY different from angkor wat, but i enjoyed bagan so much more. we had dinner at a riverside restaurant, with a pagoda in the background, and te sunset was beautiful! we stayed in a little mountain-feeling hut in this TINY village. our room
3 year old selling postcards.
Cutest thing but also the saddest thing ever...it probably only encourages them to start them young when the foreign tourists are awing over them! had a "TV"....but we only got the 2 gov't channels in burmese. um, why do they bother putting TVs in tourist rooms then? jsut so they can charge more? we were staying in an area called "New Bagan". most of the temples are in "Old Bagan". what's with the names? Well, once Old Bagan became a historical area, the gov't decided that the people who were literally living in and amongst the temples needed to move so the area was prettier for tourists. They were given one week's notice and ONLY a plot of land - no house materials or anything - to move to "new bagan". new hotels/resorts were allowed to build in old bagan, and all evidence that locals used to live there was removed.
on the way back to our hotel that night, we met a college student who wanted to take us around and show us the stupas the next day, for no charge, practice his english, etc. we said sure - and he said he'd arrange a horse cart and evreything.
Breakfast (ALWAYS, no exception) included with hotel rooms in Burma. Was a decent breakfast, and though it's not quite morning-ish, i really
liked the fried chili wontons. they eat chilis with EVERYTHING here and i love them, the locals were pretty impressed with how much chili i could consume 😊 we all piled on the horse cart - see picture commentary for notes about how many of us were on there! there were definitely other tourists, but NOTHING like angkor wat where there are hundreds of peopel on any given day!! at almost every single stupa (by the way, stupa, temple, pagoda, just consider it the same thing) we were teh ONLY ones there, it was amazing. it was so peaceful. it wasn't as stressful and exhausting as angkor wat, either, it was more refreshing in a way. I was wearing my guachos (still don't like them joce!) and my cambodian shirt, and walking around barefoot at each temple (no shoes allowed), and it all felt very spiritual in a way.
Bagan is a unesco world heritage site, and while some of the stupas were restored, unesco gave up all restoration efforts here in 1996 because they couldn't deal with the gov't anymore. We spent 11 hours total checking out temples etc, but that included a fairly long lunch break (questionable
curry floating in oil) and 45 min each at the final 2 stupas, which we climbed up and had an amazing view over the thousands of stupas, framed by te river on one side and the mountains on the other. There were no other tourists around, and we just sat, looking out at the view and watching the sunset - my favorite part of the day. It was totally an ultra-romantic sight! Speaking of romantic, Burma seems to have the cutest guys of anywhere in SE asia, and i thought about bringing home a burmese boyfriend but figured the gov't visa issues just won't be worth it! PLUS, it'd be pretty hard to find a guy here who doesn't have the DISGUSTING habit of chewing "beetlenut" - i believe they chew this stuff in india too, it's a tobacco, limestone, beetlenet concoction that they put in their mouth like chewing tobacco, and it turns their teeth a nasty red color. it's a type of drug. worst of all, they have to spit all the time, and they do, everywhere, this red stuff, it looks like they're spitting blood, it's pretty disgusting.
Oh and our guide was fantastic - he
is a history major at college (he used to be law, but he said he switched to history because he didn't want to have to deal with the gov't - i mean, can you imagine practicing LAW in burma? do they even HAVE law? not really.) so, anyways, he knew tons about the stupas, etc. and he aspires to be a tour guide - like most young guys who want to have a good job here. HIs family was one of the ones forced from Old Bagan to New Bagan, so we got to ask him about that - it's amazing how much they just take everything in stride here. In so many countries i've visited that are just really poor or have faced major, major tragedies, like the genocides, i am continually amazed by human resilience and how life just always goes on...
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Mom
non-member comment
Sounds very exciting! Those stupas are awesome! It must be an incredible experience visiting them, Pictures are fabulous! Stay safe! love, Mom