GREETINGS FROM YANGON – MY FIRST FEW DAYS IN MYANMAR

So, the dice had instructed me to go to Myanmar and like the faithful servant that I am, I obeyed. I knew, however, that it wasn’t just a case of booking a flight. I needed to obtain a visa before I could get there.

GETTING THE VISA

Myanmar have, in recent years, reduced the stringency of the requirements to get a tourist visa and it’s now fairly straightforward and you can do everything online.

Simply visit the government website at this link, fill in a few details about yourself and your intended arrival point, upload a photo that would pass as a passport photo (there’s an online tool to assist you with this) and pay $50 USD.

All you then need to do is wait for a visa approval letter to be emailed to you.

The site mentioned that this could take a few days to go through, but in my case within 3 hours and I’d received my response.

I was approved!!

When you have the approval confirmation all you need to do is print off a hard copy and present this at passport control when you arrive in Myanmar

Good to go. Flights were booked to Yangon…

ARRIVING IN YANGON

As with most places I’d visited so far, I’d avoided finding out too much about what might await me. I found it infinitely more interesting to be exposed to a world of wonder.

Myanmar didn’t disappoint.

My flight got in around 9 PM and I grabbed a taxi with two others I met at the airport, who were also heading to the downtown area. 30 minutes later and I’d checked into my hostel – the Little Monkey Hostel

Little Monkey Hostel

I was pretty hungry, but the guy working at the hostel told me that most restaurants would now be closing up. As luck would have it, a guy I’d previously met in Thailand was here in town and messaged me to say he was having drinks and a bite to eat at a street food place not too far from me. I dropped my things off and headed to meet him.

This place was raw. Authentic. Real. The smells, the sounds, the lack of pandering to tourism in any way, the roaches, the rats!

I felt initiated.

The food was good. Some fried noodles and skewers of an assortment of different meat. Washed down with a Myanmar beer and some local whisky.

GETTING MY BEARINGS

The next morning I decided to get out for a walk and see the sights of the town.

There was a real hustle and bustle to the place. The walkways were a constant stream of human traffic and, as for the roads, it took me a while to realise which side they drive on!

It was interesting to see the morning breakfast ritual of the locals – sitting out on little plastic chairs in the street, eating together, before going about their day.

Yangon locals having breakfast

What struck me here, more than any other place I’d visited so far, was that I seemed to be pretty much the only Westerner here. The locals were keen to say ‘hello’ and wave to me. Tourism here was still a relative rarity and a novelty.

Heading away from the chinatown district that I was staying in, I headed up in the general direction of the biggest sightseeing hotspot in town – the Shwedagon Pagoda

SHWEDAGON PAGODA

Upon arriving at the Shwedagon Pagoda, I had to pay an entrance fee of  8,000 Kyat (Approx. £5) and I also was wearing a vest top and therefore wasn’t covering my shoulders, so I rented a rather fetching orange jacket for a further 3,000 before being granted entry.

I’d seen a lot of temples on my journey so far, but this was certainly up there with the best.

Shwedagon Pagoda

As I was wandering around the temple an old guy came up to me and started showing me around and telling me the history of the place. The only really key things that I can remember were that the main part of the pagoda was 105 metres tall and had a 76 carat diamond at the top!

Pretty impressive!

After showing me around he then asked me for 5 US Dollars – they love dollars in Myanmar, and would rather be paid in dollars than in their local currency. Presumably because it’s a more stable currency.

I didn’t have dollars, but gave him 5,000 Kyat – around £3.

I felt a little conned, and can’t believe I didn’t see this coming. I thought he was just a bit bored and was being a nice guy.

Take note guys, if someone starts showing you around, they are obviously after cash.

To be honest though, I probably got more out of the experience as a result, so everybody’s happy.

One of the most memorable moments of this visit was when I wandered past this monk who was smiling at me. I thought I’d take the opportunity to ask if I could take his picture and he said yes. This is the result and he was so happy with it when I showed him that he couldn’t stop shaking my hand. I don’t know why he was so happy, I was going to be the one who kept the photo!

Monk at Shwedagon Pagoda

Walking away, I thought this too good an opportunity to miss, so I asked if he would hold my dice, so that I could take another photo. He obliged. I love this photo!

Monk with the dice!

Here’s a few more shots from the Pagoda:

CONTRASTS

After leaving the Pagoda I took a walk North towards a place I’d heard was the only vape shop in the whole of Myanmar.

Running low on supplies I decided to make the journey up there.

On the way there, one of the key things that I noticed was the contrast in Yangon of beauty surrounded by decay. Looking up at the buildings nearby I noticed that there were many which were rundown:

I found the vape shop – ‘vape city 2’. This actually implies that there’s more than one in the country!

Anyway, I managed to stock up, which was a relief, but it was fairly expensive as importing this stuff in Myanmar is not simple apparently. Either that, or I got a bit conned again!

I left the shopping centre and headed back to the hostel.

Here’s a video that covers this first day – apologies for the sound, I was holding the GoPro with my hand and this kept causing clicking noises when I touched anywhere near the mic.

BOOZY NIGHT

That evening I met some girls at the hostel who were looking to grab some food and recommended a nice place by the lake which was a short taxi ride away.

I went along for the ride and it was one of the best meals I’d had since travelling, but was expensive by Asian standards. Still, you have to treat yourself once in a while!

We jumped in a taxi and headed back to the street food market area where I’d been the night before to grab a few drinks.

When we were there we bumped into a couple of the other guys from the hostel and sat with them to sink a few ‘Myanmar’ beers.

After a couple of drinks, the subject of dice travel came up and, intrigued with the idea, one of the girls decided to put it to the dice whether to eat a cricket or not. The dice said yes, but she wan’t keen on obeying.

After a little heckling, she agreed to abide! Scared initially, she was actually pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t as bad as she expected.

I got a fair bit of grief for not trying this myself, so I agreed to a dice roll. A 1 or a 2 would mean I had to also eat one.

I rolled a 2.

I reached into the bag of crickets, feeling their crisp bodies and spindly legs and before I could think about it too much, I put one in my mouth and chewed voraciously.

I was also surprised.

The crispiness was good and the flavour was not too dissimilar to eating crisps. Pleased with myself that the dice had forced me once again to go out of my comfort zone, and with a new experience ticked off, I finished my beer.

After the cricket debacle we headed to another bar in pursuit of some cocktails.

After a while we noticed one of the local Burmese guys asleep with his head on the table.

Struggling

He proceeded to throw up all over the table and would not move for love nor money.

Apparently he was the chef at the restaurant and had gotten a little too involved in the local rum. Us and the locals made the most of heckling him while he was in his inebriated state and it took some time for us to rouse him.

I get by with a little help from my friends…

We proceeded to get pretty smashed with the locals until chucking out time

Heading outside I noticed a few local guys sitting in the back of a trailer, playing guitar and having a sing song.

Another dice roll option.

If I rolled odd I would ask I could play them a song. I rolled a 3.

I wandered over and gestured to the guitar. They happily passed it over to me and moved up so that I could sit on the trailer with them. I played them a song and they seemed pretty keen on it. It was great fun to engage with the locals like this.

One guy was so keen, that he gave me his phone number afterwards. This was a little awkward.

Everything was closing up so we headed to a shop around the corner to stock up on a couple of road beers and took these back to the hostel to sink a few more.

HUNGOVER

After a very heavy night, I wasn’t up to much the next morning, but in the afternoon I headed for a walk around another area of the town, East from where I was staying to make sure I got more of a feel for the place before heading onwards.

Here’s some pictures I took from this wander:

I’d only had a couple of days in Yangon. I enjoyed it, but felt ready to move on. I was aiming to head up to Bagan, but decided to stop off on the way, to break up the journey. Next stop Pyay…..