Wonderful shots, tempted me to go next week (probably be booking these 2 days)...
By the way, can advise me on the following?
1) Is the domestic & international airport near to each other? Cos' intended to stay in either bagan or Mandalay till last day then return to Yangon & straight away connect Silkair to Singapore
2) Is it better to travel between bagan & Mandalay by land? How long will be the journey? Cos understand the flight is only 30min so may not make sense to check in-out of airport...
3) Is the internet connection available easily (Other than Yangon)? What about local top-up SIM card? Cos need to keep connection with Singapore..
4) Any good & convenient hotel to recommend in Yangon/Mandalay/Bagan? Other than the one u mentioned in Inle Lake. Is Hotel budget S$150 enough?
Thank you.
First of all, Singaporeans also need visa to Myanmar. So, make sure you have that aspect covered.
1. I suppose you are talking about Yangon. The domestic and international airports are kinda walking distance. Its walkable if you don't have too much luggage. Our travel agent had arranged a car to pick us from the domestic airport and drop us the at the international. It took less than 3-4 minutes - almost like going out of one gate on to the main road, drive 200m and then into the entrance to the international airport.
2. I will strongly recommend taking flights in Myanmar whenever possible. The roads are quite bad and it will easily take you 8-9 hours by road.
Mandalay airport is at least 60-75 minutes away from the city. Even factoring the time it takes to get to the airport, I will still advocate taking the flight. If you have lots of time on hand and don't mind roughing it out, then upto you...
3. Internet connection is non-existent. I didn't even bother. One of my friends wanted to try at our hotel in Mandalay, but gave up after spending 10-15 minutes in getting to google.com
You can purchase a SIM card in Yangon. My friend and I brought one at USD25 each, from a supermarket opposite our hotel. For whatever reason, we weren't able to send SMS. :dunno:
I did use that card to make local calls in Mandalay and to Yangon to talk to our travel agent. So, nothing wrong with the card.
International calls are mighty expensive from the mobile phone. Once you run out of money in the card, you cannot topup
Read more here...
http://www.myanmar2day.com/myanmar-information/2009/01/new-prepaid-gsm-phone-cards-from-myanmar/
If at all you have to make calls back to Singapore, maybe you can use one of the public phones. I saw some make-shift stalls by the roadside with a table and a phone and many people making calls from those phones. Not sure how they work and how much it would cost.
For 9 days, I totally forgot about the outside world.
4. Our hotel room in Yangon was big, but was a dump. The one in Mandalay was too far from the city centre. Lucky we stayed only for 1 night in these two cities. Any longer and I would've contemplated a change of hotel. I wouldn't recommend either of these hotels to you.
In Bagan, you have three choices to stay - New Bagan, Old Bagan, Nyaung U.
Most backpackers stay at Nyaung U. I haven't stayed there, so can't comment. But we met some travellers who stayed there and paid around USD8-10 for a bed (was it twin sharing or dorm, I dunno).
Old Bagan is mighty expensive. That's where you have the 5 star hotels.
We stayed in Arthawka Hotel in New Bagan. For a triple room, we paid USD35 per night if I am not wrong. Awesome staff. They were like family to us. Always smiling whatever time of the day we saw them. Really brightened up our stay. New Bagan was quiet and we totally loved it. We had a horsecart driver who lived right across the hotel, so he would come and fetch us at 5 in the morning and drop us back at 10pm too. No qualms.
Hope this helps.
