First of all I want to make myself clear upon starting this travel blog that my English is not good. I treat blogging activity as one of the venue to improve my command on English.
The trigger that kicked off my guts to embark on this Yangon-Bagan-Mandalay-Bangkok-Singapore trip was rather I first recognised it as accidental mishap, but later I took it as a blessing in disguise. I sent a 20feet container to Yangon full of batik samples from all across indonesian archipelago.however apparently there were some problems that the container had to continue all the way to Mandalay. My friend , Aye Myat Su who lived in Mandalay ( a city 900km away from yangon) later decided help to market my batik textile. But many marketing problems arose and it seemed very unethical if i do not by myself supervise my own business at least once. Now eventually I found a very good reason to travel , So then I decided to do business travelling to Mandalay with the subtext of also having a grand vacation. A blessing in disguise.
I and my friend Ryan (my travel partner, my friend and my employee) started planning the itinerary 3 months before the D-day.
We spent 5 days in the city of Yangon and its surroundings. Yangon is beautiful city. Most of the building were rather worn off, yet it was still functioning and well maintained. Yangonite put more emphasis of interior decor than exterior appearance of their dwelling, maybe one reason is because they want to look as unnoticeable as possible to avoid being frequently visited by tax official .
Before arriving Yangon International airport we had a transit flight on DonMuaeng International airport (DMK), bangkok . DMK was rather very dilapidated , many tiles coming out of the floor. The toilet stinks and the was so many Chinese tourist that I almost thought I was in China. The airport announcement was also done is Chinese beside of course Thai and English.
So we arrived at Yangon International Airport 08 pm local time. The airport was very clean and impressive for a developing nation like Myanmar. It has a futuristic architecture and tiled with combination of Italian marble and Indian Granite. The ceiling was low compared to most airport in the world, but the bright interior decor creates the emphasis spacious element.
We met my childhood friend friend, Hendry who is already there in the waiting lounge since couple minutes earlier. He is Singaporeanised Indonesian. He dressed in a Singaporean style denim jeans and sporty black cotton T-shirt. John my Burmese friend and his girlfriend fetched us from the airport and as we exited we can feel the chaos of the real Myanmar. Taxi driver gathering around us desperately trying to get us to ride their car. They charge us 11000 kyat (USD 9) for fare from the airport to our hostel at 41st street. But John politely declined and we jaywalked across the street a few metres away from the airport . The new fare offered was immediately slashed to 8000 kyat (USD 7). But the airport security officer was not happy and tried to stop our taxi driver for not using the designated pick up point on in the airport entrance. But our driver just dashed away . Our adrenaline surged, as if I were in fast furious movie. Breaking rules is a norm here i guess. Just like, but a little worse than my own country Indonesia. yet Hendry who spent almost all his life in Law abiding nation like Singapore It was definitely a brand new yet a challenging experience.
We journeyed along the yangon downtown at night. There was not much to see just arrays of brightly lit shophouses along the road. People drove on the right side and yet the driver seat was also on the right, very awkward right? as we traveled across town I realised yangonite drove like mad, 90- 100 km/ h in town a narrow road. I thought It was just the way the whole country drive. if we for instance got 50km/hour on the street ( a normal driving speed in Indonesia) some other driver must have already been backtailing behind wanting to crash us into pieces. I believe there was this unspoken driver law in Yangon. Drive fast, or dont drive at all. I felt that fast furious 8 should cast their actors from one on these yangonite driver, they will sure past the test.
Our Airbnb-booked Hostel , Shannkalay Hostel was located in a very good neighbourhood at 49th street. It was summer and was hot. but thankfully the aircond was working well in our room. John had earlier stayed in the other room for 3 days to anticipate our arrival. After we put our luggage we went out to have a welcome supper and beer downstreet. It was alrd 10pm by then.
We spent 5 days in the city of Yangon and its surroundings. Yangon is beautiful city. Most of the building were rather worn off, yet it was still functioning and well maintained. Yangonite put more emphasis of interior decor than exterior appearance of their dwelling, maybe one reason is because they want to look as unnoticeable as possible to avoid being frequently visited by tax official .
Before arriving Yangon International airport we had a transit flight on DonMuaeng International airport (DMK), bangkok . DMK was rather very dilapidated , many tiles coming out of the floor. The toilet stinks and the was so many Chinese tourist that I almost thought I was in China. The airport announcement was also done is Chinese beside of course Thai and English.
So we arrived at Yangon International Airport 08 pm local time. The airport was very clean and impressive for a developing nation like Myanmar. It has a futuristic architecture and tiled with combination of Italian marble and Indian Granite. The ceiling was low compared to most airport in the world, but the bright interior decor creates the emphasis spacious element.
We met my childhood friend friend, Hendry who is already there in the waiting lounge since couple minutes earlier. He is Singaporeanised Indonesian. He dressed in a Singaporean style denim jeans and sporty black cotton T-shirt. John my Burmese friend and his girlfriend fetched us from the airport and as we exited we can feel the chaos of the real Myanmar. Taxi driver gathering around us desperately trying to get us to ride their car. They charge us 11000 kyat (USD 9) for fare from the airport to our hostel at 41st street. But John politely declined and we jaywalked across the street a few metres away from the airport . The new fare offered was immediately slashed to 8000 kyat (USD 7). But the airport security officer was not happy and tried to stop our taxi driver for not using the designated pick up point on in the airport entrance. But our driver just dashed away . Our adrenaline surged, as if I were in fast furious movie. Breaking rules is a norm here i guess. Just like, but a little worse than my own country Indonesia. yet Hendry who spent almost all his life in Law abiding nation like Singapore It was definitely a brand new yet a challenging experience.
We journeyed along the yangon downtown at night. There was not much to see just arrays of brightly lit shophouses along the road. People drove on the right side and yet the driver seat was also on the right, very awkward right? as we traveled across town I realised yangonite drove like mad, 90- 100 km/ h in town a narrow road. I thought It was just the way the whole country drive. if we for instance got 50km/hour on the street ( a normal driving speed in Indonesia) some other driver must have already been backtailing behind wanting to crash us into pieces. I believe there was this unspoken driver law in Yangon. Drive fast, or dont drive at all. I felt that fast furious 8 should cast their actors from one on these yangonite driver, they will sure past the test.
Our Airbnb-booked Hostel , Shannkalay Hostel was located in a very good neighbourhood at 49th street. It was summer and was hot. but thankfully the aircond was working well in our room. John had earlier stayed in the other room for 3 days to anticipate our arrival. After we put our luggage we went out to have a welcome supper and beer downstreet. It was alrd 10pm by then.
This is the first time for me to taste the local cuisine. We order fried noodle , fried riced and prawn tempura a close relative to what we have back home as honestly we are not ready yet to taste 'unique' tasting local food. Our stomach was just so hungry that we carved for familiar food.
Immediately we noticed the fried rice and the fried noodle were rather oily. The chili condiment was rather taste as if mostly consist of vinegar. The prawn tempura was crunchy and good. Well , good enough to recharge our energy. We had 3 bottle of myanmar local beer which brand was, guess what, myanmar beer. Lol. The beer was cheap. Only 1900 kyats per bottle .
We had a good night sleep.
