Budget for Myanmar

Planning to go somewhere always involved a bit of budget. A backpacking trip is no different, and there is always the uncertainty of the amount exactly spend given all the little extra we enjoy during our holidays.

Context

Before speaking about figures, here is a bit more context about our trip.

The length of the trip was a good 17 days, plus 4 days in Bangkok. To keep the figures clean, we only display the cost for Myanmar.

Level of comfort

Regarding our comfort requirement, we don't look at the cheapest flight / accommodation but rather at value for money. For instance, we do not sleep in dormitory, nor travel in local buses with no comfort. It is just our style of holidays, and also given the country is cheap, we can afford a little extra.

Exchange rate

All accommodation and most buses were paid in USD. Other activities and restaurant are in MMK which the exchange rate from the airport was at the time 1USD = 964 MMK

Expenses

Transportation

Flights

The main expense was the flight. We booked a flight between London and Yangon at least 6 months in advance. There are many options with different companies and lay over. We deliberately went for a stop over in Bangkok on the way back, so it was a bit more expensive. Flight with Thai Airways was 800 GBP / pp.

Local transports

Once arrived you need to book some buses to travel from one big place to another. There are some VIP buses where you can sleep and entertainment system for up to 40 USD.
We took a number of taxi, including moto taxi, these cover short distance trips within the city. It is relatively cheap. The maximum we have paid for was in Yangon to go to the bus station. Cost: 10.000 MMK.

Once we took a boat between Mandalay to Bagan, this one was rather expensive for the journey: 40 USD.

More details about transport in a dedicated post http://offwegoto.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/transport-in-myanmar.html

Accommodation

Accommodation doesn't come cheap in Myanmar and the comfort is nothing like home. The country opens up to tourist and there is a lack of infrastructure. As a result, guesthouses are relatively expensive for the quality they offer. Often they are fully booked too.

Our budget for a double bed room in a guesthouse relatively well located (next to the city center) is around 40 USD / night. Breakfast is always included but quality vary.

The cheapest was in Yangoon, for around 25 USD, the most expensive in Mandalay for 50 USD. To cut on the accommodation cost, we traveled twice on a night bus; the VIP one.

More details on accommodation on dedicated post http://offwegoto.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/accomodation-in-myanmar.html

Activities

During our trip we did a lot of activities such as visiting the local zoo (Yangon), the pagoda etc. In some places such as Bagan and Inle Lake, tourists have to pay a fee up to 15 USD to visit.

In Kalaw, we did a 3 day trek that includes the guide, the nights and the food in villagers house. As we formed a group of 6, the price was reduced to 36 000MMK / pp, down from 54 000 MMK/ pp if the group if formed of 2 only. We really enjoyed the group and helped each other during the trek. So, it was one of the good experience in Myanmar with the best possible value!

In Inle Lake, we hired a boat for 15 000 MMK. Again we shared the price with the group we formed during the trek.

I will not emphasize here all the activities we have done, as we will publish these in a new post.

Food and drinks

The pleasure of eating local food, drinking different beers and some wine.
In most places, restaurant and beer are very cheap. A meal for 2 in a local restaurant (on the street) is for less than 7000 MMK in most places, can be a bit higher in touristic areas.
Also, in a most sophisticated restaurant, or lounge bar, where you don't see a lot of locals, the price is more oriented for tourists.

A bottle of water ranges from 300 to 500 MMK a liter
A coke for 1000 MMK
A beer (Myanmar) 2000 MMK
Another beer (Dagon) 1500 MMK

Other expenses

Other expenses range from souvenirs to medication if needed. Of course, it depends of what you want to buy and bring back home. So, I will not emphasize this point.

Summary

In summary, I would say that this trip was more expensive that a similar holiday in Romania a couple of years ago.

To provide a better estimate, here are the costs we faced per category. 

Category	USD
Accommodation	381.5
Attractions	269.7
Food & drinks	185.6
Laundry	3.2
Medicine	1.8
Souvenirs	71.8
Transport	263.9
Total	1177.5

Buy some nice souvenirs

During our trips, we visited lovely places, some of which have dedicated art work that I still would love to take home. Despite the limited budget, we have bought a couple of souvenirs and we are very glad we did, although we could have bought more. 

This blog post will guide you through the best places to go ‘shopping’ and list the best pieces you can buy and bring back from Myanmar.

Yangon

What should you buy in Yangon?

I would say everything you didn't buy elsewhere. Yangon in itself doesn't have any specific souvenirs, but if you miss out something from elsewhere try to find it again in Yangon. It might be a bit pricier, and you have more chances to find it into the big market.

Also by walking around, it may give you further ideas.

Markets

In Yangon, the Bogyoke Aung San Market (formerly Scott's Market) is the biggest one and you will find lots of small shops with local specialties. Here is the link to find it out on the map http://goo.gl/KDXYsw

We didn’t try this one as we were in Yangon on a Monday, which is the only day the market is closed. Instead, we went to Theingyi Market which wasn’t opened until late in the morning. This market is smaller and is specialised in drugs, medicine with a couple of small antique shops. There are also many vendors around on the streets, but we didn’t really found out something interesting to bring back home. 

At night, along the streets, the black market pops up. Lots of unofficial shops open and offer t-shirts, glasses, leather wallets… Almost anything, the price is very cheap, so maybe the quality as well.

I was surprised that on some items there was a price tag, and as it comes so cheap, no need to discuss a further discount.  

The Green Elephant

As advised by our traveler book, we went to the Green Elephant to find out some lacquerware gift before returning back home. 

The shop is located far from the city centre, direction north towards the airport, next to the university. It is quite a walk under the heavy sun.  The prices are more expensive than elsewhere, but the shop (also a high end restaurant) selects the best pieces from over the country, so the selection is quite good.

In the end we bought some little souvenir, the least expensive we could find.

Airport

It is your last opportunity to buy some souvenirs from the country at the tax free shop within the transit area. Be aware that the airport souvenir shops are really, really overpriced! Easily up to 5X the normal price!!

An example? A small lacquerware box to hold some cheerot (local cigarette), was tagged at 15 USD; double the price from Inle Lake, and without the cigarettes.

The advantage of buying at the airport?

• All price are USD, and you can buy by card
• The selection of souvenirs is quite good
• But once again, it is way too expensive!

Mandalay

In Mandalay as such, there is not much to visit but once you go a bit outside, it is a very nice place. It is the same on the souvenir side. 

We did a bike tour, and our guide showed us a typical market. I can't really remember the name of it, and where it was, but we bought the typical Myanmar dress, a longyi. Longyi come in standard size, women's one are colorful and they tight it up on the side, men's one have plain color with squares, they tight it up in the front. Price for 2 longyis, 6500 MMK, a really good deal!

The famous longyi

The longyi is very traditional, all men and women wear it on the street. Also, it is part of the official school uniform. For this reason, I would say, it is a must buy. That's all we bought in Mandalay.

Bagan

Bagan is located next to the river Irrawaddy and offer a beautiful landscape with over 2000 pagodas. As it is very dry, and hot all day long, the ground is mainly sand and that is the base material of the sand painting. 

In each pagoda, you will meet a lot of locals, young children as young as 2 years old, trying to sell you post card for 1000 MMK each. It is rather expensive but I am sure you can negotiate the price. Other locals, teens and adult will teach you the history of the pagoda, either in French or in English and show you the way to climb it up and enjoy the beautiful view. In exchange, they will ask for your time to sit down, so that they can display their artwork: sand painting.

Example of sand painting in Bagan from our pagoda guide

As the name suggest, sand painting is a drawing in color or B/W made with the sand from Bagan . It represents either the beautiful landscape of Bagan, some Buddha, or characters linked to Buddha. 

Most of the paintings are really well made, and it takes up to 5 days to make one depending on the size and complexity. 

The artist will insist to have a look at all of his painting, and will reassure you by saying 'just looking, no buy'. Once seated, he will quietly display them all, his technique gauges your interest in any of them. Of course, he will try to sell one or more of them. Then it comes to the price, our pagoda guide started with an asking price of 20 000 MMK for a nice colorful Bagan landscape. Of course, the price was overstated, so he asked for the price I would give. In addition, he stated the time he spends making it and emphasize the family helping him at work. It is just a technique to make the deal in his favor by making it more emotional. 

So, I said half the price, and came to an agreement mid way between his price and mine. 

Thinking a bit more about the transaction, I could have lowered the price even more but it was already too late. Anyway, I am very happy with our purchase. 

One thing to know, you will find only these sand paintings in Bagan and nowhere else. So, if you like them, you'd better buy them there. We only bought one are happy about it, but we could have bought a couple more, unfortunately we already left the city. 

Kalaw

Altough Kalaw is a nice little city, with a beautiful market, we didn't buy anything. There was nothing special we could have thought of. 

Inle Lake

Inle Lake is a beautiful region, where a whole village is built upon water; therefore you really need a boat for your journey. 

There are many specialties around Inle lake:

• Lacquer ware
• Sun umbrella
• Paper lampshade
• Silk and cotton clothes
• Jewelry

Lacquer ware

Around Inle Lake you can find pretty much anything made of lacquer, from the small cigarette box to a much larger one. 

The boxes are really nice, well made with a typical design from Myanmar. In addition, they are quite affordable, so why not by a couple of them?

For instance, we bought one in Inle Lake at a cheerot factory, a small box containing the cigarettes for 7 000 MMK. I admit, it was a bit expensive, but the place had a lot of choice and we wanted to buy one. The same box would have been half the price at NyaungShwe. 

Sun umbrella

Hand made from the Inle Lake area. Made from paper, I think these are really fragile and could be damaged on a plane even in the cabin. We thought it was too fragile to take one back, we preferred to take a picture instead.

What about the price, sun umbrella comes in different size, consequently with different price tag. I have no clue given that we didn't buy one.

Paper lampshade

Made with the same material as the sun umbrella,  the paper lampshade is lighter as there is no wood structure. Folded, it doesn't take a lot a space in the luggage, and naturally you have some beautiful design. Some lampshade have the form of a star, and come in different colors. 

Price tag 1000 MMK each.

A paper lampshade once hanging

Silk and cotton clothes

At the Inle Lake as well, there is a clothe factory that produce its own silk, also from the lotus flower. There are up to 100 workers, mainly women to take care of all the production steps manually. 

The factory is rather busy, but allows for tourist to visit. All the steps are explained through, and at the end of the visit, there is the big shop where any clothe is on sale. 

Given the quality of the fiber, and the time needed to make a scarf for instance, the price tag is expensive. The shop is rather well equipped as it is possible to pay with credit card....

Manual fiber fabrication

Jewelry

Also in Inle Lake, jewelry is hand made by a limited number of workers. They are pretty agile melting the silver and carving it into jewelry. They pay a lot of attention to details. 

At the end of the visit, there is a mandatory stop by the shop to show the entire collection of jewelry. Again the goal is to sell to the tourist, price are negotiable and one can pay with visa.

Silver is melting at very high temperature before being carved to make it a jewel

If you really like their pieces of jewelry and are not afraid of the price, this place is a good one.
On our side, we have opted for smaller pieces bought at the NyaungShwe market, at a discounted price of course. It is another interesting place to buy souvenirs, if you missed the ones during your boat trip on Inle lake.

Our itinerary in Myanmar and Bangkok

We traveled for three weeks, from Saturday 16/11/2013 to Saturday 7/12/2013.
Here is the detail of our journey:

16/11: Flight from London Heathrow to Yangon with a 6 hours transit in Bangkok
17/11: Arrived in Yangon in the afternoon
18/11: Visit Yangon. Leaving to Mandalay with the night bus.
19/11 - 20/11: Visit Mandalay
21/11: Day boat trip to Bagan, we left early morning and arrived late afternoon
22/11 - 24/11: Visit Bagan. Left on 24/11 with the night bus to Kalaw.
25/11: Arrived at 1.30am. Visit Kalaw and booked our trek to Inle Lake.
26/11 - 28/11: Trek to Inle Lake (3 days / 2 nights). We arrived at Inle Lake in the afternoon.
29/11 - 01/12: Visit Inle Lake. We left on 01/12 with the nigh bus to Yangon.
02/12: Visit Yangon
03/12: Flight from Yangon to Bangkok. We arrived in the afternoon.
04/12 - 6/12: Visit Bangkok
07/12: Flight from Bangkok to London Heathrow. We left at 12.15am and arrived around 6.30am (13 hours flight)

Off We Go to Packing time

1 day before flying to Burma, it is time to pack and make sure we have everything. Fortunately, I still have some time left in case I still need to go shopping...

Here are what we take in our backpacks. We do not want to carry too much and at the same time, we have to carry the essential, such as a good medical kit, other equipment and of course clothes.

Medical kit

• First aid kit
• Malarone
• Prevent against malaria
• Motilium
• against nausea, vomiting, stomach ache
• Imodium
• against diarrhea
• Paracetamol
• Water purification tablets
• Mosquito repellent
• DET
• Sun cream
• Soap
• Shampoo

Other useful equipment

This category concerns all objects that may well be useful to carry with us. You never know what could happen on a backpacking trip in such exotic country. Don't expect the same infrastructure as in the modern western world. Some "Mc Gyver's" accessories are always useful!

• Rope
• Mosquito net
• Pen knife
• Flash light

Clothes

I advice taking some light clothes, as at the end of the day we carry our comfort in our backpack. So we'd better travel light! Avoid bright colours, American brands... you want to be as neutral as possible. 

At night, it is pretty chilly, in the bus as well with the air con, so a pull over and warm clothes are strongly advised. 

• 5 light t-shirts
• 2 light pants
• Pair of short
• Pull over
• Underwear
• Towels 

Gifts

In Burma, the population lacks what would consider basic furniture. As we have been in contact already with people living there, they ask us to kindly bring the following:

• Pens
• Lighters

Off We Go to Burma

Next trip we plan is going to Burma. Only a couple of weeks away.
So this post will go over our plan, a little bit of budget and resource that helps us to plan our trip.

For the first time, it will be a full backpacking trip as we don't have much hotel or hostel booked, nor any transportation. The whole idea is to get there and travel around for almost 3 weeks.

Why Burma? 
We always wanted to travel far and go to Asia. However we don't like places where there are many tourists as you don't really enjoy the local life.

Burma is on a process of being a full democratic country. The liberation of Aung San Suu Kyi, a famous Burmese activist, is the proof of these recent changes. Consequently, there is not yet many tourists, and most places are free of them, except for the most adventurous.

So we are looking forward to our first Asian trip

1 - Plan

Like other tourists, we would like to visit the most beautiful places of Burma:

• Yangoon
• Mandalay
• Bagan
• Kalaw
• Inle Lake
• (then back to Yangoon)

It is basically the itinerary we will follow. Given that we have nothing booked, it may however change.

1.1 The resources

To assist us in planning our trip, we bought a traveller book, Le Guide du Routard (http://goo.gl/lpxyX3), available on Amazon.
As we are French speaking (but no, we are not French!), we opted for this one given that it is the most recent edition, compared to the English version of the Lonely Planet (http://goo.gl/8e6XOd).

In addition, we went to many online forum such as:

• Le Routard http://www.routard.com/
• Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Forum http://goo.gl/jJKnYh
• Trip Advisor tripAdvisor.com

All of these help us out to organise our trip and provide all the necessary advice.

1.2 Before going

Before going, there are always a couple of things to check out, especially since it is a full backpacking trip. We don't have much experience, so we do not want to take any risk

• Visa is needed for Myanmar
• Injection are more than recommended
• Have the right medicine with you
• Have a good travel insurance

1.2.1 Getting a Visa

There is a good forum thread on Trip Advisor (http://goo.gl/2fX7tK) speaking about the visa process. I can tell you, it is really useful. If you have still any question, you can contact silverswimmer He seems to be a travel expert on Burma, he will always answer you.

So regarding the visa, we did the application via the Myanmar Embassy in London, as we live there. The process is straight forward and takes a week to complete.

Official Visa Application form Myanmar

For the application you need to join:

• The application form  
• Official Website of the Embassy of Myanmar London http://www.myanmarembassylondon.com/
• Link to the PDF application form http://goo.gl/Xh2fGv
• 2 photo ID
• 14 GBP / person
• Valid passport for at least 6 months

Send your application form with your details in a envelope and include an envelope for the embassy to return the visa to you. 

Ask at the post office for "Special Delivery Guaranteed", it means that the receiver has to sign to get the documents, and the delivery is guaranteed by the next day. Also ask for the same service for the return document. The Royal Mail will be able to help you. 

Albeit a bit more expensive, this service is really good as you can track your important documents to the embassy and to home, once the embassy has done all the paperwork. I was scared to send my passport through the mail at first, but having them back in a week, all tracked means it was really worth it.

Note that your visa will start at the date you will receive it back from the embassy. So don't hurry to send it to them, it only takes a week to process it.

1.2.2 The flight

Even before applying for a Visa, we booked our flight. There are many options available on the market, and we decided to go for a Thai Airways flight from London Heathrow to Yangoon. 

Flight starts at around 500 GBP for a return ticket, with good airlines but the catch is often the delay at the airport to get the corresponding flight. Up to 24h. 

As it was not worth it, we opted for a direct flight to Bangkok, having a corresponding flight to Yangoon. On the way back, we do a lay over to Bangkok for a couple of days, so we can relax in the city as well. Our flight is around 800 GBP.