I woke up at 3:15 am on Thursday after 2h of sleep to go to BKK airport. The first thing I noticed when I got out of the airport building in Yangon was the nice climate, a little cooler than Bangkok and without humidity. Some other people and me were taken to the guest house in a let’s say 40 year old bus which didn’t seem to make it all the way – but it did! In the afternoon I hooked up with a French couple and a girl from Germany to see a temple with a huge reclining Buddha (bigger than in Bangkok) and then we discovered the surrounding area with more temples. We met an old man at the entrance of one of the temples when we were about to go to the famous Shwedagon Pagoda. He told us that he can show us a shorter way through the monastery area and we accepted because it’s nicer than going on the dirty streets. He was very kind and the “abbreviation” to the Pagoda turned out to be a 2h tour, visiting different parts of the monastery. We even went to some of the monk’s homes where we had tea with them in their “living rooms”, really cool! It’s totally understandable that he asked for some help at the end of the tour (taking into account that this country is really poor) but we really thought that his intent was fully non-commercial. It’s really a pity because a feeling of being scammed remains. Nevertheless, it has to be mentioned at this point that the people here are overwhelmingly friendly to foreigners. Even in the most touristic places there is only little hassle and only few intents of selling you something.
We finally arrived at Shwedagon Pagoda. It’s difficult to describe it with words. It’s huge and it’s entirely covered with gold. It’s surrounded by neighboring buildings and temples, really impressive. I will try to upload some photos later on. We stayed there until after sunset to see it also when it’s illuminated.
After sightseeing, a Danish couple, two other German guys and me were looking for food and stopped at a street bar, not because it looked especially nice, but rather because we were so hungry after the long day. The food was, let’s say so, borderline. Cold rice with some rests of chicken and oily sauce. It was eatable but really no pleasure. We then went back to the guest house where I had a second dinner, better, but not very tasty neither.
On Friday, I went to the city center. It has some nice corners and interesting colonial buildings (some of them are almost ruins and seem to be abandoned for ages) but I cannot say that it is particularly nice. I ended my trip and the central market building where foreigners use to change money. In Myanmar the only way to get cash is bringing dollars and changing them at banks or on the streets, where you get a slightly better rate, but running the danger of being scammed. I met a couple from Switzerland who was worried about the amount of money they brought to Myanmar. There is no chance to get new money from ATMs or banks because the country is not connected to the international banking systems. If you run out of cash, you have a serious problem.
I all places I heard worrying stories concerning accommodation in Myanmar. In Yangon I booked my guest house in advance, which was a good decision, because there were people cruising around Yangon for hours looking for a place to sleep. Now in high season, the situation is really tough. In the other touristic places in Myanmar the situation is similar and people from the guest house were trying to get accommodation arranged in beforehand in order to avoid hassle. It seems as if tourism is increasing rapidly in Myanmar (still on a low level), but not the number of accommodations. I was then rethinking my situation because travelling alone is even more complicated and more expensive. Booking everything in beforehand is really against my travelling philosophy and so I decided finally to leave Myanmar. I know it’s a pity because the people are really nice and most travelers like it a lot but I had like an intuition, a bad feeling, that I will not really enjoy it the way I should. I couldn’t really imagine myself travelling there for over 3 weeks with serious logistical problems in the main tourist areas and with the risk of being totally alone in less touristic places. It’s strange because the charm of travelling in a very original country like Myanmar with few tourists can turn out to be a problem when you are travelling by yourself. Anyway, maybe my decision was totally unjustified but I didn’t like to continue travelling against this negative feeling.
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