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Kiwi-Chimp Venture past trips - burma Trip to Burma/Myanmar Nov/Dec 2000 We were not much prepared for Burma really, because our decision to fly to Burma was made quite shortly before our holiday started. To book the cheap flights (which we got through Trev’s work) was not possible more than 4 weeks before and it took a while until we got the final confirmation and then were able to ask for the visa which took again more than a week. So all in all we did not read much about Burma before, I did see a lot of pictures of one of our friends who had been there before and had told us about this beautiful country. After reading the guidebook a little bit , we did expect slow travelling through the country, quite expensive accommodation, problems with the FEC (foreign exchange currency) and also that we had to book transport well in advance. Not all of that became true, lucky! We arrived in Yangoon, the capital of Burma ,quite late at night and managed to negotiate at the airport that we did not have to change the 200 USD per person into FEC, which is the foreign exchange currency for tourists. The government forces every tourist to exchange 200 USD into FEC at the airport, so that the hard currency USD goes straight to the government. But against a “little present” for the ladies in the bank at the airport we were allowed to exchange 100 USD per person instead of 200. We walked through passport control and customs without any problems and expected to be awaited by a crowed of taxi drivers or toots from guesthouses, but there was nearly nobody waiting outside and that made us wonder how we could get into the centre of Yangoon that late at night. Then we were asked by a friendly taxi driver if he should take us into town. We offered him half of the money which he asked for the ride into town and again were surprised that he accepted so quickly. He was a very nice guy and during the ½ hour taxi ride he told us a lot about the town, country, money exchange rates, Pagodas and monuments and good places to stay. We were surprised he spoke so good English and felt a bit ashamed, that we only offered him half of the money he wanted after all that good information he gave us. He promised us to take us to a cheap but clean and friendly hotel with centre location and I wondered if it would become a rip off, but no: The hotel he took us to was clean, cheap and the owners very helpful. So we decided to stay there said goodbye to the friendly driver and got to talk to a German couple at the reception. This couple had bought a bottle of Myanmar rum and invited us to a have a “Welcome in Burma drink” with them. So, there we were sitting and drinking Burmese rum on our first night with this German couple. They were interesting to talk to and they had already spend 3 weeks in Burma and gave us some good information. At the next morning we were up early, no wonder, it was pretty hot in the room, even the fan did not help much and there was a lot of noise on the street (Why did we ask for a hotel in the centre??). So after breakfast (tea, toast and banana) we decided to go straight to the train station and find out if we could get a night train out of Yangoon and up to the North on the same night . We walked through the town and it was only 10.00 am but already so hot and sunny!!! We were both wearing long trousers and shirt, because you should not wear shorts and a string top in Burma and we did not want to offend the Burmese people. The counter at the train station was closed but we were lucky again a young man who spoke a bit of English offered us to show a second counter at the other side of the train station. So off we followed him for about 10 minutes until we got right to the other side of the station. Here he got the tickets for us, which we did appreciate very much, because there were no signs in English nor could anybody speak any English. With our two train tickets for the night train in “upper class” in our hands we invited the young man for a drink and we spend nearly 2 hours talking to him and getting more information about Burma. After we left the station we experienced that every person we talked to in Yangoon was friendly and helpful. We did a bit of shopping and had lunch end enjoyed looking around and meeting people. We spend the afternoon in the main big Pagoda and then it was time to take our train to go up North. Upper Class seats are not quite what you may think about them. The only difference to Ordinary Class is that, the seats recline like seats on a bus and are a bit softer than Ordinary Class. But it was OK for us. We managed to get some sleep on the 13 hours train ride, well, at least Trev did manage to get lots of sleep, because he is able to sleep anywhere, no matter how loud or shaky the rides are. I am a bit different: I had problems to go asleep, because the train was moving from on side to the other on the track. You could see through the door and the carriage in front of use did move about 1 meter to the left, when our carriage moved to the right and also we were bouncing up and down. If you would have tried to go from one carriage into the other you might have to jump one meter higher or lower..... a bit scary, I found. I asked Trev a couple of times if he thought the train would derail, but he just told me to get some sleep and not to worry about it, because in case we would derail not much would happen anyway because we did not do a very high speed (did not convince me!). Finally we arrived in Mandalay at 6 in the morning and I was looking forward to a nice bed! page 1-2-3-4-5 Copyright © 2003 kiwichimp all rights reserved

Kiwi-Chimp Venture

past trips - burma

Trip to Burma/Myanmar Nov/Dec 2000

We were not much prepared for Burma really, because our decision to fly to Burma was made quite shortly before our holiday started. To book the cheap flights (which we got through Trev’s work) was not possible more than 4 weeks before and it took a while until we got the final confirmation and then were able to ask for the visa which took again more than a week. So all in all we did not read much about Burma before, I did see a lot of pictures of one of our friends who had been there before and had told us about this beautiful country.

After reading the guidebook a little bit , we did expect slow travelling through the country, quite expensive accommodation, problems with the FEC (foreign exchange currency) and also that we had to book transport well in advance. Not all of that became true, lucky!

We arrived in Yangoon, the capital of Burma ,quite late at night and managed to negotiate at the airport that we did not have to change the 200 USD per person into FEC, which is the foreign exchange currency for tourists. The government forces every tourist to exchange 200 USD into FEC at the airport, so that the hard currency USD goes straight to the government. But against a “little present” for the ladies in the bank at the airport we were allowed to exchange 100 USD per person instead of 200.

We walked through passport control and customs without any problems and expected to be awaited by a crowed of taxi drivers or toots from guesthouses, but there was nearly nobody waiting outside and that made us wonder how we could get into the centre of Yangoon that late at night. Then we were asked by a friendly taxi driver if he should take us into town. We offered him half of the money which he asked for the ride into town and again were surprised that he accepted so quickly. He was a very nice guy and during the ½ hour taxi ride he told us a lot about the town, country, money exchange rates, Pagodas and monuments and good places to stay. We were surprised he spoke so good English and felt a bit ashamed, that we only offered him half of the money he wanted after all that good information he gave us.

He promised us to take us to a cheap but clean and friendly hotel with centre location and I wondered if it would become a rip off, but no: The hotel he took us to was clean, cheap and the owners very helpful. So we decided to stay there said goodbye to the friendly driver and got to talk to a German couple at the reception. This couple had bought a bottle of Myanmar rum and invited us to a have a “Welcome in Burma drink” with them. So, there we were sitting and drinking Burmese rum on our first night with this German couple. They were interesting to talk to and they had already spend 3 weeks in Burma and gave us some good information.

At the next morning we were up early, no wonder, it was pretty hot in the room, even the fan did not help much and there was a lot of noise on the street (Why did we ask for a hotel in the centre??).

So after breakfast (tea, toast and banana) we decided to go straight to the train station and find out if we could get a night train out of Yangoon and up to the North on the same night . We walked through the town and it was only 10.00 am but already so hot and sunny!!! We were both wearing long trousers and shirt, because you should not wear shorts and a string top in Burma and we did not want to offend the Burmese people.

The counter at the train station was closed but we were lucky again a young man who spoke a bit of English offered us to show a second counter at the other side of the train station. So off we followed him for about 10 minutes until we got right to the other side of the station. Here he got the tickets for us, which we did appreciate very much, because there were no signs in English nor could anybody speak any English. With our two train tickets for the night train in “upper class” in our hands we invited the young man for a drink and we spend nearly 2 hours talking to him and getting more information about Burma.

After we left the station we experienced that every person we talked to in Yangoon was friendly and helpful. We did a bit of shopping and had lunch end enjoyed looking around and meeting people. We spend the afternoon in the main big Pagoda and then it was time to take our train to go up North.

Upper Class seats are not quite what you may think about them. The only difference to Ordinary Class is that, the seats recline like seats on a bus and are a bit softer than Ordinary Class. But it was OK for us. We managed to get some sleep on the 13 hours train ride, well, at least Trev did manage to get lots of sleep, because he is able to sleep anywhere, no matter how loud or shaky the rides are. I am a bit different: I had problems to go asleep, because the train was moving from on side to the other on the track. You could see through the door and the carriage in front of use did move about 1 meter to the left, when our carriage moved to the right and also we were bouncing up and down. If you would have tried to go from one carriage into the other you might have to jump one meter higher or lower..... a bit scary, I found. I asked Trev a couple of times if he thought the train would derail, but he just told me to get some sleep and not to worry about it, because in case we would derail not much would happen anyway because we did not do a very high speed (did not convince me!).

Finally we arrived in Mandalay at 6 in the morning and I was looking forward to a nice bed!

page 1-2-3-4-5