I have had a lot of my readers ask me how I planned a trip to Myanmar from Kenya, so I thought I would share our itinerary and where we stayed with you in a separate blog post.
Before I get into this – being the lawyer that I am, I must advise that I have no affiliation with any agents, airlines or hotels mentioned here, and that all opinions and research is my own. I would also recommend that as Myanmar is a dynamic and changing country, you do your own research before you go! I am happy to answer any questions based on my own experience as best as I can, so if you feel like you need to know more then drop me a line – I always love hearing from you!
GETTING THERE:
At the time, the easiest way to get to Myanmar was connecting through Bangkok. I simply love Emirates and even though there is a direct flight to Bangkok on Kenya Airways, I opted to fly though Dubai and continue to rack up the points on my Skywards Card – I am a Gold Tier Holder and I have to fly a certain number of miles every year to retain this perk, and since I absolutely love Emirates, I will try as much as possible to route through Dubai. But, you can connect to Burma in a number of ways so choose what works best for you – Qatar also has direct flights from Doha, as does Etihad from Abu Dhabi.
VISAS:
The easiest way for us to get a visa was to book our trip with a local agent. They emailed all the paperwork and processed it prior to our arrival, and we were very pleased to have a visa pasted into our passports on arrival! The process was painless and I would be happy to give you the name of the agent and additional details on getting a visa if you need this.
WHAT WE DID:
We opted for a 10 night stay in Myanmar, as follows. This is a skeleton itinerary and I have linked my posts on the adventures so that you can correlate what we did on the days we were in certain places.
- Night 1 – Arrival in Yangon and check in to the Traders Hotel. Given that we arrived so late, we stayed in the first night.
- Day 1 – Exploring Yangon. Catch up on what we did in Yangon here:
- Day 2: Flight to Bagan on Air KBZ. Check in to Aureum Palace Bagan.
- Day 3: Explore Bagan
- Day 4: Explore Bagan. Catch up on adventures in Bagan here and here
- Day 5: Fly to Mandalay on Air KBZ. Check in to Mandalay Hill Resort and explore Mandalay.
- Day 6: Explore Mingun, Sagaing and Amarapura.
- Catch up on adventures in Mandalay here and here
- Day 7: Fly to HeHo, Lake Inle on Air KBZ. Check in to Inle Resort.
- Day 8: Explore Inle.
- Day 9: Explore Inle. Adventures in Lake Inle can be found here
- Day 10: Fly to Yangon on Yangon Airways. Check back into Traders Hotel. Explore rest of Yangon.
- Day 11: Fly to Thailand and onward to Koh Samui.
USEFUL INFORMATION:
- The Burmese really do want CRISP dollar notes and will return them if they have so much as a fold on them!
- You are not allowed to wear socks or shoes in any temple. Some of the temples in Bagan do have pigeon poop all over them so you will have to watch out. Will be useful to carry wet wipes to clean your feet once you are out of the temple zones!
- You can get a local Sim card on arrival at the airport. We got ours from Yatanarpon, at the main exit at the arrivals terminal. It will cost you USD 50 per sim (supposedly refundable but the stall opens from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm so if you have an early morning flight out of Yangon – you have no chance of getting your money back!). You can also check on www.mm-mobilerental.com for more information.
- Below are the entry fees that we paid. Please do check before you travel as fees may have changed since we were last in Myanmar. Most temples and sites do charge a variable fee for cameras.
Entry and Zone Fees (Myanmar):
|
|
