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    Exploring Myanmar: Traveling the Dusty Roads of the New Burma
    Exploring Myanmar: Traveling the Dusty Roads of the New Burma
    Exploring Myanmar: Traveling the Dusty Roads of the New Burma
    Ebook105 pages2 hours

    Exploring Myanmar: Traveling the Dusty Roads of the New Burma

    By Amber Hoffman

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    About this ebook

    This is a personal story of my 28 days spent in Myanmar in 2013. It is a story of troubled bus rides, dusty journeys, long boat tours, preschools on stilts, ancient pagodas, tea houses, fresh noodles, and the people I met along the way. It is a story of my travels with my husband of 11 years. It is my personal experience and my impression of what it means to travel through Myanmar.

    This book is not a guidebook or a traditional travel guide. Although I hope it provides some practical advice, it is not a replacement for Lonely Planet. It will not give you a list of airlines, bus companies, guesthouses, or restaurants. There are no maps. It also will not provide the complicated history of Myanmar, formally Burma, as volumes have been written much better than I ever could.

    Myanmar is an unique country - the last frontier of Southeast Asia travel. Information is spotty, and constantly changing. Although the guidebooks and websites can provide practical information, they cannot come close to describing how it feels to travel through Myanmar at such an exciting time.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAmber Hoffman
    Release dateOct 12, 2013
    ISBN9781301685301
    Exploring Myanmar: Traveling the Dusty Roads of the New Burma
    Author

    Amber Hoffman

    After 10 years as an attorney, Amber left her job at the largest law firm in the world and decided to start living her life. She is now a recovering tax lawyer, perpetual nomad, intrepid foodie, and yoga teacher, traveling the world With Husband In Tow. She plans, Eric follows, and after 60+ countries and 12 years of marriage, she wants to share their travel tales with the world.

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    Book preview

    Exploring Myanmar - Amber Hoffman

    Exploring Myanmar:

    Traveling the Dusty Roads of the New Burma

    by Amber Hoffman

    Exploring Myanmar: Traveling the Dusty Roads of the New Burma

    Copyright by Amber Hoffman and With Husband In Tow Publishing at Smashwords

    All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

    Special thanks to Eric, Max, Sandra, Florian, and Ann, for helping with this project.

    For more information on Myanmar and other travel destinations, see www.WithHusbandInTow.com.

    Table of Contents

    Disclaimer

    Introduction

    Chapter 1: Visa and Arrival

    Chapter 2: Money Troubles

    Chapter 3: Accommodations

    Chapter 4: Transport

    Chapter 5: Temples

    Chapter 6: More Than Just Temples

    Chapter 7: Tea

    Chapter 8: More Than Just Tea

    Chapter 9: Food

    Chapter 10: Giving Back

    Disclaimer

    What This Book Is Not

    This book is not a guidebook or a traditional travel guide. Although I hope to provide some practical advice, it is not a replacement for Lonely Planet. It will not give you a list of airlines, bus companies, guesthouses, or restaurants. There are no maps. It also will not provide the complicated history of Myanmar, formally Burma, as volumes have been written much better than I ever could.

    I have traveled extensively throughout most of Southeast Asia, spending weeks and months in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. I have traveled through less developed countries and have my share of travel horror stories. Myanmar is unique and suffers from a tourism infrastructure in its infancy. This book is not a complaint from a Western tourist who is unaccustomed to traveling outside of her comfort zone.

    What This Book Is

    Myanmar is a unique destination - the last frontier of Southeast Asia travel. Information is spotty, and constantly changing. Although the guidebooks and websites can provide practical information, they cannot come close to describing how it feels to travel through Myanmar at such an exciting time.

    This is a personal story of my 28 days spent in Myanmar in 2013. It is a story of troubled bus rides, dusty journeys, long boat tours, preschools on stilts, ancient pagodas, tea houses, fresh noodles, and the people I met along the way. It is a story of my travels with my husband of 11 years. It is my personal experience and my impression of what it means to travel through Myanmar.

    The first few chapters may make you run and scream, vowing to avoid the country at all costs - visas, money changers, accommodations, transport. It was the driest and dustiest 28 days of my life. The most interesting stories, though, are often the ones where something went wrong, or minimally that provide experiences entirely different from those you get at home.

    Continue reading, and hear about the wonderful people, gorgeous temples, and fantastic food. Take the journey with me. Survive the logistics hardships with the resulting reward of seeing a stunning country. It is worth it in the end.

    Introduction

    We waited somewhat impatiently for our complimentary transport, from our hotel in Mandalay to the highway bus stop, for our overnight journey to the Inle Lake area. We had a lovely VIP bus ride from Yangon to Mandalay, with only three seats across, air conditioning, private TVs with English movies and a welcoming hostess to help us out. Our bus to Inle had none of these luxuries.

    I was told there were no VIP buses going to Inle, or more specifically Taunggyi, the capital of the Shan State, in Eastern Myanmar. To get to Nyaungshwe, the jumping off point for the lake, the bus drops you off at Shwenyaung (Nyaungshwe in reverse), a small town just north, also referred to as the Junction. With a scheduled departure of 6:30 p.m. from Mandalay, the estimated arrival time at this road side junction was set for 2:30 a.m. I was not expecting much sleep that night.

    If there were no VIP buses, I at least tried to ensure air conditioning. The pleasant lady who sold tickets at the hotel said yes to the air conditioning. When purchasing the tickets I also used the words tourist bus, express bus, and direct bus, to try to convey I was willing to pay a few bucks more for a little more comfort. The hotel automatically booked us with their regular bus company - Golden Moon. There was nothing golden about it.

    The tickets cost about $13 a piece, including the complimentary transport, which turned out to be a pick up style taxi, a lain ka, with a row of benches on either side of the back, open aired, but covered from the sun. A young couple with a small child, a few backpackers, and some more locals were piled in the back of the truck with us, all with luggage and packages. I held onto the bars on the side of the truck, or on the roof for support. When the driver suddenly stopped at an intersection, we all fell forward with such a thrust that I almost tore my arm from its socket, as I grasped the bar on the roof to keep me from crushing the small child in front of me.

    Mandalay is a dusty place, like most of Myanmar, particularly at the end of the dry season. It is a commercial center and certainly is not the most attractive stop in Myanmar. The 30 minute drive from the city center up to the highway in the open aired lain ka left me feeling dirty, just what you want before boarding an eight hour overnight bus. There was so much dirt in the air on the lain ka that at some points I covered my mouth and nose with my t-shirt.

    The bus station seemed to be in a dust bowl, the sunset-tinted sky highlighting the clouds of smoke and haze. There were buses and people everywhere - passengers of all walks, vendors, food stalls. It was unorganized and happenstance. If Golden Moon had not dropped us off, I wondered if we ever would have made it out of there.

    We pulled up to the Golden Moon bus and all I thought was lovely, with a sarcasm that I have perfected inside my own head. The bus was certainly not VIP. It was decades old, the upholstered seats were surprisingly sandy, considering we were nowhere near a beach. The seats we were assigned were not exactly comfortable, with a large metal bar located where the seat and back met. There were nasty large ashtrays on the seat back in front of us, and everything just felt dirty. There was a strange staleness to the air. Hardly VIP.

    Because there were no toilets in sight, I left the bus to pour some water on my hands and face, an attempt to clean the dust from my body before hunkering down for the night. A futile attempt, as it turned out.

    The air conditioning was on, barely, but it seemed to be cooling down. As the bus continued to fill and I prayed people would not be placed on the jump seats, or fold up seats, placed in the aisle, all I felt was the vibration under my feet - it seemed like an airplane engine under foot. Although I joked that I could appreciate the foot massage, I was prepared not to sleep a wink on the eight-hour journey.

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