Myanmar

Up till now,there is absolutely no mass tourism, but the country is finally opening their borders. A couple of years ago it wasn’t easy at all to visit Myanmar because it was strictly controlled by the army. But fortunately it is now easy to visit Myanmar and we have to say it is more then worth it, to visit the golden country. The country offers so much history und cultural highlights. It is really incredible, you have to see it! Everywhere around, you can see the golden tops of all the temples.

But this was only the start of all the amazing stuff.!!!

We traveled through the country only for 8 days, unfortunately not a long time, but we saw all the highlights anyway. We started our tour in Mandalay and we drove down to Yangoon, for us, the real capital of Myanmar.

Mandalay

Mandalay is the second largest city in Myanmar and there is not so much to do but you can explore the surrounding areas. The huge wall of the former imperial palace with an amazing moat ist definitely an eye catcher.

Imperial Palace at sunset

View terrace on the Mandalay Hill

Viewpoint of the Mandalay Hill.

On of the biggest tourist attraction is the 250m (820 feet) above the ground Mandalay Hill.

For all you sporty people out there, it only takes 1000 steps to climb up the hill! For all the others, there are taxis.

A lot of people are coming there to enjoy the awesome view over the surrounding paddy fields and to enjoy the temples. The entrance fee is approximately 1000 Kyat (0,75 €).

Modern monks on the Mandalay Hill 🙂

Mingun Village

It is really a nice trip to go by boat directly from Mandalay to the village named Mingun. There you can see, a big rock-pagoda and believe me it is really incredible when you are in front of the huge rock. A lot of a nice people we met there we had a cup of coffee with them (Photo), as we reached the village. An old and very nice man brought us to the village by coach pulled by a cow in front. The Pagoda is one of holiest places for the buddhism. Because of the big earthquake in 1974 the Rock is a little bit damaged but it is very beautiful anyway.

We climbed up the the rock on our one risk to enjoy the incredible view of the river and the beautiful landscape.

Our “taxi driver”

Mahagandhayon monastery

One really popular tourist attraction is the Mahagandhayon monastery, it was built in 1914. It was really interesting for us, especially the big custom of the monks. It is an old tradition of the monks, everyday they are picking up the food from different places in the monastery, for example in the first station is a big bowl with rice and in the 2nd is big bowl with beans, and you have to know all the food is donated by the government. When they have everything together they are walking on after the other (approx, 150 monks) to the dining room.

It is really a big show everybody is watching this and  tries to get the best picture .

Monks on the way to the dining area

Mahamuni Pagoda

Another really interesting pagoda for pilgrims is the Mahamuni pogoda. This pagoda belongs to the most religious center in Mandalay. You can see a 3 meter high buddha there, really incredible! Every day religious people come there to paste leaf gold on the buddha. It has been started in 1901 and up till now they are doing it every day so the buddha is  growing and growing of course … By the way you really have to see it! Fucking awesome!

The growing Buddha of pure gold leaf

A little monk on the Hsinbyume Paya Stupa

 Monywa 

Although Monywa is actually a very small village, there are some huge attractions!!! A really gigantic 130 meters (426 feet) high buddha is suddenly standing in front of you! And another lying buddha of the length of over 90 meters wow!!!!! And they really want to build a whole city with golden buddhas, thats really glorious! We also visited the holy Tambodi Temple. The appearance of the temple was really kitschy, because the temple was soooo colorful. As we entered the temple we were directly, totally thrilled because no kidding you can see over 500.000 buddhas everywhere in the temple, really awesome.

Bagan

It is really an amazing place, especially when you can enjoy the view from the top of one of its gorgeous temples, it really feels like a 1000 years ago.

Bagan has tons of very old and beautiful pagodas. A real eye-catcher is the biggest and also the most famous pagoda. Between the 11th and 13th century they were building approximately 4000 pagodas, but nowadays there are only 2000 pagodas existing. They were destroyed by the huge earthquake. And never rebuilt. These days it is forbidden to climb up on the top of the pagoda, and thats probably one of the greatest experiences in Bagan and for sure the best place to enjoy the sunset and sunrise.

Floating with a ballon over the magical landscape of  Bagan

It was really an awesome experience to see Bagan out of a ballon! We took a lot  of really great pics and it was a great moment! Folks we can recommend it to everybody, you have to do it when you are in Bagan!  It is a ones in a life time experience and we promise you, that you will never regret it, it is really more then worth it!!!!!!!! We enjoyed it so much it was like a magical moment to see the sunrise and all the pagodas and balloons. You can book directly or online for ca. 330 US-Dollar p/p.

Naypydaw-  the huge ghost town of Myanmar

Napydaw is the brand-new capital of the country. And we can guarantee, you will be a little bit confused and maybe you might shake your head all the time because it is hard to believe when you enter the city. You see absolutely nobody !!!! You can see tons of brand-new luxury hotels, but no-one there and whats even more incredibly weird that they are building more and  more.

After that we visited a big shopping-mall with a lot of famous brands, but same situation not busy at all. But for us the real highlight was the Highway with 16 lanes, which would be big enough for an airplane twice of the size of an A380 and we are sure nobody would notice it, if really an A380 would land there! There is much more traffic in a small village. Religious people can visit a golden pagoda and a big cage with of course a white elephant;)

Where the heck are we? Seems like a very strange fairy tale! But it is the capital of Myanamar! The crowed place on earth….. incredible ….

Yangoon

Honestly Yangoon feels like the real capital of Myanmar, Yangoon has approx, 4-5 million inhabitants. The city is really like a big crowded city. Still today you will recognize the former influence of the British colonial times, because you can see a lot of nice parks (gardens) and gorgeous  buildings.

Yangoon is a busy city. You can see tons of shops on both sides of the street, where they sell all kinds of stuff like spices, fruits, jewelry and textiles. Yangon offers a big choice of nice bars and really nice cafes where you can enjoy a cup of coffee or tea and feel the atmosphere of the city!!!!

The highlights of the city without a doubt is the incredible golden Shwedagon-Pagoda.

You can see the gigantic pagoda everywhere in the city. The Shwedgan -Pagoda is the holiest place in the whole country and very important for the buddhism. The whole pagoda consist of pure gold and the top is covered with gems and jewels.

It is a very silent and peaceful place and it was an amazing experience to visit and beautiful to see all the candles and the praying people.

Shwedagon-Pagoda

Asia Restaurant

Sunset boat trip

Infobox

Visa:

An e-visa for tourists can now be requested electronically from home and costs about 50 US dollars.
You can find all the informations for US, UK and AUS: here

Currency:

Myanmarischer Kyat MMK
More ATM`s available
The current course you can look up at Oanda

Language:

Burmese
English

Local time:

You can read the local times here

High Season:

The best time for Myanmar here

Health:

The vaccination passport should be checked by a doctor and refresher courses such as tetanus, yellow fever and hepatitis A, B, C may be performed.

You can read more about this here.

Safety:

You can find all entry requirements at the listed embassies

Embassies:

For US Embassy: link
For UK Embassy: link
For AUS Embassy: link

Saskia & Bastian

& Barney 🙂