Myanmar - Yangon - Day 1 Part 1

For some unknown reason, the allure of Burma, or Myanmar as it is politically correct to call it if we follow ASEAN and UN protocol, evaded me. It did not register as a destination I had to visit, and even the dreary island of Batam, Indonesia’s attempt at a Freeport modeled after neighbouring Singapore caught my imagination for a few months (which I didn’t visit: flying over it on approach to Singapore Changi made me realize I just had a travel itch and Batam sounded weird enough to visit).

Then it hit me, and it hit me hard. Samwise was posted to Burma for a while, and I sought to visit him. Sadly, our dates didn’t coincide. The inflight magazine on board Malaysia Airlines in January ‘14 kept mentioning Pagan, and an old friend John told me how I would love the destination, if not for the architecture of Rangoon.

It also occurred to me that very, very, very few of my acquaintances have visited the country. At last! My dreams of an explorer and archaeologist scaling up ruins with a picnic basket of ham and champagne could be sated!

In between flights and after almost 3 weeks of consecutive travel, I decided to book a flight to Rangoon, and out popped Yangon on the destination list, so I shall now refer to the city as Yangon.

And that is how I ended up at the airport, observing how the Burmese queue, very politely and actually with travel manners. I was pleasantly surprised and was wondering what wonders would tickle my fancy. In the queue at KLIA, when there were 3 people in front of the x-ray machine before you enter your gate, they quietly took off their belts, placed their mobile phones and wallets in their bags and made sure there was nothing on their person that would beep the machine. Very civilized, even more civilized than citizens of some purported ‘industrialized’ or ‘newly industrializing’ countries.

The flight took roughly 2 hours and 30 minutes, mostly Burmese passengers with a few intrepid middle aged explorer types or business types. Very few families, packaged tour groups or the like. This was starting to look like a fun adventure.

Before flying in, I had to obtain a visa. Odd, for an ASEAN country to require other ASEAN citizens except the Philippines to require a visa. The visa centre is no longer at the Myanmar Embassy at Jalan Ampang Hilir in Kuala Lumpur, which to be honest did not give a very good first impression of the country. Instead, it is now ‘outsourced’ to a ‘travel centre’ in a beautifully restored colonial building next to Masjid Jamek LRT station in the heart of old Kuala Lumpur.

Visa fee receipt

Visa processing fee receipt 

Process for the Myanmar Visa: send in your passport before noon after having filled in the form, your flight details and passport photo with a while background, hand over MYR 140 including MYR 30 processing fee and you will get your Myanmar visa by tea time the same day. Very efficient. You do not need to even print out your hotel booking details.

Used Burmese Visa, single entry

At the airport, I needed to collect my domestic flight ticket from Yangon to Nyaung-Oo/Nyaung-U for my expedition to Pagan. For the 1 hour 20 minute flight on a turboprop on Air Mandalay, it cost me USD 232. Yes, expensive, but well worth it, as I will tell you later.

Paper ticket: throwback to the Golden Age of travel

However, the domestic terminal is not easy to get to. Located next to the new International Terminal of Yangon International Terminal, you have to get out of the building, walk perhaps 200m down the main dusty road, past what looks like a cargo facility and in to another building which also says ‘International Terminal’ but looks like an international terminal that was built during Earl Mountbatten of Burma’s time and has not been renovated since. It can be a bit hectic, but I had to go inside, look for the Air Mandalay office, hand over my passport, and be handed back (with passport of course) a very old school paper ticket, with carbon-paper ticket coupons, hand written. If this does not scream ‘Come! Explore! Adventure ahead!’ I don’t know what does.

Pen-written details on the paper ticket

Having got my ticket and paid a taxi driver KYT 7,000 (local currency pronounced ‘chat’ with ‘a’ as in ‘car’), I went in to town and on to my hotel in downtown Yangon. Hotels are expensive in Yangon, with the ‘4 star’ Traders Hotel Yangon, sister of the 5 star Shangri-La Hotel, costing about the same as Shangri-La Hotel Singapore during conference season.

Former Methodist Church & Rangoon Railway Station, downtown

Checked in and excited upon observing a  country where people drive on the right side of the road but have both left- and right-hand drive cars driving there, and where truly, very, very few cars have air conditioning or even suspension, I had to visit the very symbol of Myanmar itself, and soak in the atmosphere.