Myanmar in Review

 in Myanmar by

Bagan

  • Hotel review (Hotel Yadanarbon Bagan): Good food and pool area, with average sized and well kept rooms. Only complaint would be the noise of pigeons on the roof at night, which got a bit annoying as we tried to sleep. Overall, we would recommend this hotel.
  • Favorite restaurant: Given this is where Mike was sick, we didn’t eat out many places… the best food we had in Bagan was at the hotel
  • Favorite tourist attraction: Sunrise viewing from the Shwesandaw Pagoda
  • Favorite non-tourist attraction: Conversations with Ming (our tour guide) about Burmese life and Buddhist history
  • Favorite dessert: Banana juice/smoothies w/ NO ICE (incredibly useful if your stomach is giving you issues)
  • Most memorable moment:
    • Mike- My first traveler’s sickness experience
    • Hillary- Meeting our Austrian friends and getting to share our Bagan adventure with them
  • If we could do it over… we would taken another day to rent a motor bike and explore on our own (this was the plan the day Mike had to stay in the hotel)
  • If going, you must… 1) see the sunrise from one of the pagodas/temples, 2) visit the Manuha temple (read Hillary’s post on Bagan for context), and 3) get a good guide for a full day (well worth the money – Bagan has an incredible history and you’d miss a lot of it without a guide; also helpful to avoid the touristy spots)

Yangon

  • Hotel review (Merchant Art Boutique Hotel): Nice spacious rooms, very clean, great breakfast and amazing rooftop. Convenient location close to Shwedagon Pagoda, and the staff is very hospitable (they even booked our bus to Bagan for us). Only downside is that the showers tend to flood the bathroom… besides that, we definitely recommend this hotel.
  • Favorite restaurant: Aung Thukha Myanmar Restaurant (amazing authentic/local food experience and VERY inexpensive)
  • Favorite tourist attraction: Shwedagon Pagoda
  • Favorite non-tourist attraction: Eating a meal with the locals at the charity house (although we think this is where the Bagan food poisoning incident stemmed from)
  • Favorite dessert: Going to be a bit boring here and say fruit smoothies again
  • Most memorable moment:
    • Mike- Getting pulled into the charity house kitchen to stir giant pots of food with rowing oars
    • Hillary- Managing to connect and interact with our fellow diners at the charity house, despite speaking completely different languages
  • If we could do it over… we would limit our time there to only 1 or 2 days (Shwedagon was really the only thing we thought was worth spending a lot of time seeing in the city)
  • If going, you must… spend as much time as you can possibly spare walking around and admiring Shwedagon Pagoda (sorry for getting repetitive, but it was really that amazing)