Itinerary for 11 Days in Myanmar

Table of Content hide

Dyas 1. – 2. - Mandalay

DAY 3. – From Mandalay to Bagan

DAYS 3. – 6. – Exploring Bagan

DAY 6. – Journey from Bagan to Inle Lake

DAYS 7. – 9. - Inle Lake

DAY 10. – Flight from Inle Lake to Yangon

DAYS 10 - 11. - Yangon

From Myanmar to Vietnam

Travel Advice for Myanmar

Burmese Language Lesson

When I was planning our trip across Southeast Asia I knew Myanmar is a must place to visit. I heard many positive reactions towards this country, but when we were actually going there, I didn’t have any expectations. I knew the country was in tourism isolation for over a decade and so their culture has been quite unspoiled by western influences, but I didn’t expect to find such open minded and friendly locals, rich history, strong Buddhist beliefs and delicious cuisine. Itinerary for Myanmar

If you are planning a trip to Asia in nearby future, I’d advise you to visit Myanmar as well, before it gets too touristy. More and more people visit this country every year, especially in peak season from November to February, so I guess during this time some places can get pretty crowded. Despite its growing popularity, in shoulder season from May to June, we were the only international travelers in most of the places and locals were taking photos with us everywhere we went. In Bagan, which is top Burmese destination, we met just few other tourists (I could honestly count them on my fingers), which is today quite unusual.Itinerary for Myanmar

We spent in Myanmar full eleven days, but of course you can stay here much longer and won’t get bored. Here is our 11 day itinerary around the country. I hope it’ll help you with your planning! Itinerary for Myanmar

Dyas 1. – 2. - Mandalay

We arrived to Mandalay from Chiang Mai by plane with Bangkok Airways. This airline was truly a great surprise! It was the best from all the low cost airlines we’ve used in Asia. Even though the flight was only 1.5 hour long, we got a nice meal with dessert and check-in luggage was included in the price (20 kg each, even though we didn’t have that much luggage with us anyway).

We arrived to Mandalay late in the evening and by the time we got to our hotel we were quite tired so we just went to get some food and sleep before the next day. Itinerary for Myanmar

We spent in Mandalay one full day but with a private driver, who took us around, we managed to see quite a lot from this city, which is the 2^nd largest in Myanmar. Mandalay is not old, it was built in the 19^th century by Kind Mindon as the new royal capital, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have history or culture. On relatively small space you can find over 700 temples and pagodas, a royal palace, markets and modern buildings, all together set along the banks of Ayeyarwady River.

In one and half day in Mandalay we managed to visit many temples and other popular places. Keep reading to find out which.

Hsinbyume Myatheintan Pagoda (The White Temple)

Together with the Mingun Bell and Pahtodawgyi Pagoda, The White Temple is located outside of Mandalay but it’s really worth the drive. All the places are amazing and especially this temple looks like from a different world!

U-bein Bridge

The longest bridge made of teak wood in the world. It’s quite scary to walk on it as there are big gaps between the wooden boards. Many people come here for the sunset and take a boat ride on the river. We come here during the day so there were less people but I guess the atmosphere wasn’t as magical.

Kuthodaw Temple

This Buddhist stupa, located at the foot of Mandalay Hill, is a great example of traditional Buddhist architecture and it’s also considered as the biggest book in the world. It was built by King Mindon and it contains all the Buddhist texts and teachings that are engraved in marble stones and placed around the main big golden stupa. Even though it’s all written in Burmese language, it’s a very interesting place to visit.

Mandalay Hill

Mandalay got its name after this hill that rises above the town. It’s scattered with many pagodas and the views from the top are simply gorgeous. Itinerary for Myanmar

Where to Eat in Mandalay

Myanmar is home to more than hundred ethnic groups and minorities and each of them has their own special way of food preparation. This makes Burmese cuisine really unique and delicious! In Mandalay, we ate in these restaurants I can recommend all of them as all the food we ate was simply great: Itinerary for Myanmar

Mingalarbar
Golden duck Chinese restaurant
Golden palace – traditional Burmese restaurant

DAY 3. – From Mandalay to Bagan

On our 3^rd day we said goodbye to Mandalay and continued our journey to Bagan. The original plan was to go by scenic ferry on the river which takes about 9 hours and it stops in a traditional fishing village along the way. Unfortunately, because we were traveling off season, this wasn’t an option (only normal ferry, which as I read online is not very a pleasant experience), so we opted for a 6 hour long bus ride through Burmese country side.

The bus cost us only 14 USD for 2, while the ferry would be 25 USD for one. The bus ride, although long, was quite comfortable as the seats could be adjusted to the sleeping position. Trains are not an option in Myanmar unfortunately. I liked the train rides through Vietnam, but here they take long and they are not comfortable so for long distances bus or air transport are your only options.

DAYS 3. – 6. – Exploring Bagan

Bagan was my favorite place not only in Myanmar but in whole Southeast Asia and it belongs to one of my most beloved trips up to date! It is hard to describe Bagan’s atmosphere other than magical. There are thousands of Buddhist pagodas and temples on relatively small space and you can discover every day new ones and new ones. Some of them are in very good condition but on others you will be able to see signs not to enter or get close because of falling bricks and rocks. Luckily, Bagan’s application to UNESCO was finally approved so hopefully soon more pagodas will be repaired so this place won’t be losing any more of its charming temples!

Because we loved Bagan so much and I have many photos to share, I prepared a separate article about our adventures there and travel tips, which you can find here. Itinerary for Myanmar

DAY 6. – Journey from Bagan to Inle Lake

From Bagan we took and over-night bus to Inle Lake. The journey lasted about 10 hours but we were able to get some sleep as it was proper sleeper bus. For 26 USD for both of us we got some pastry for dinner, water, coke and a package with wet towel, small toothbrush and a tooth paste. It wasn’t the most comfortable journey as roads in Myanmar are quite bumpy but it was the cheapest option. We got to the town Nyaung Shwe at 4 am and went straight to our hotel. I booked the extra night because I knew we would arrive very early and I didn’t want to just wait on the streets till we can check in. There were some taxis waiting for the bus arrive so we got to our hotel easily. It’s essential to book the bus in advance! I booked ours on this website here, which offers different transportation options around Myanmar.

Nyaung Shwe is the biggest town nearby Inle Lake and also has an airport. Most hotels and restaurants are located here and usually prices for accommodation are cheaper than the hotels which are located directly on the lake. Itinerary for Myanmar

DAYS 7. – 9. - Inle Lake

Inle Lake is the second largest lake in Myanmar and it’s an important source of fresh water in the country. It is located among the mountains in the 884 m height above the sea level, which made this place quite inaccessible in the past, therefore its way of life, culture and traditions developed without any outside influences. This fact makes Inle Lake area very special and quite different from the rest of Myanmar.

We stayed in Inle Lake for three days and similarly to Bagan, I loved and absolutely enjoyed our time here, therefore, I wrote a separate article that you can find here with all the necessary information.

DAY 10. – Flight from Inle Lake to Yangon

After Inle Lake, we had one last stop on our Myanmar itinerary and that was Yangon. The original plan was to take another sleeper bus from Nyaung Shwe, but after finding out that it would take minimum of 14 hours (usually it’s more because there aren’t any highways in Myanmar and the roads are quite bad) we decided to fly from the nearby Heho airport, which is about one hour drive from Nyaung Shwe. We booked a driver from our hotel to get there in the morning and to be there an hour and half before the flight, but as we found out after the arrival to Heho, this time frame was unnecessarily long.

Heho airport is very small, it looks more like an old bus station. They didn’t have any computers, they literally checked our names in a big book and then they gave us hand-written boarding passes. Then a guy took our luggage somewhere without putting a note on it where it should go. The airport has only one line for tiny airplanes and people stand on it to signal them where to go. They have a tractor that carries the luggage from the one and only terminal to the plane. I was surprised and amused by this place. If you are scared of flying, you like control and you have to know that everything is top notch, I wouldn’t recommend you taking a flight from here. But if you have limited time, extra money and you trust that everything will end up well, go for it! Just keep an open mind, because this airport is in the middle of nowhere and it functions probably just by a miracle! Itinerary for Myanmar

We flew with national Myanmar Airways, and from my experience I can say they were quite good. Not as great as Bangkok Airlines but I liked them much better than AirAsia for example. The flight to Yangon was short and we got there early in the afternoon. We hailed a taxi at the airport and went straight to the hotel as in Yangon, there was a mild storm welcoming us.

DAYS 10 - 11. - Yangon

Yangon, also known as Rangoon, is the biggest city in Myanmar and until 2006 it served as country’s capital. Then the military government decided to build a new capital Nay Pyi Taw in the middle of a jungle, but none of the locals wanted to relocate so today Nay Pyi Taw is famous as a ghost city. We didn’t visit the capital due to limited time and honestly I had no interest to see this place, but I would recommend you to at least check out some photos online.

Now back to Yangon! Yangon has many amazing pagodas to visit and some great colonial architecture to see, but I wouldn’t suggest to stay longer than 24 hours. I didn’t particularly like the city. We stayed two nights and I think one would be more than enough. During our one full day here we visited these places:

Shwedagon pagoda

This is the most famous and sacred pagoda in Myanmar. Its top is made of pure gold and it is said that it costs more than all the money in British banks combined (couldn’t verify this info online though). If you’d like to get some nice photos here, you have to come super early because it gets very busy later during the day. The entrance fee for international tourists is 10,000 MMK per person. This is the only temple where you have to pay, the rest is fortunately free.

Aung Mye Thuka Monastic Education School

I am not sure if you will be able to actually find this place or go inside, but we met a monk in Nga Htat gyi Pagoda, who took us there. It’s a school and temple for monks and there’s a sacred standing Buddha statue made of one big piece of marble which came by river from Mandalay. This is really great in Yangon, and in Myanmar in general, that people want to talk to you and tell you their story. We experienced many amazing encounters with locals and I am forever thankful for that.

Maha Wizaya Pagoda

A very nice modern pagoda not far from Shwedagon. There’s a little lake with turtles at its entrance.

Chaukhtatkyi Buddha Temple

Inside of this temple you can find 60 m long sleeping Buddha (with a bit strange choice of make-up and nail polish – worth to see).

Nga Htat gyi Pagoda

Just across the street from Sleeping Buddha you can find this temple with big sitting Buddha.

Kandawgyi Park

A nice big green city park. There’s a famous dragon boat on the lake in the middle of the park, but unfortunately during our visit it was under construction.

Chinatown

Chinatown is full of great restaurants in the middle of the city. Our hostel Baobabed was located there.

Downtown Yangon

You can find many colonial buildings here, even though some of them are not in their best shape.

I was disappointed to find out that there is no nice walk along the river in Yangon. In my imagination, there was some sort of promenade where we can take a walk similarly to Hue in Vietnam, but no. There’s just a big road along the river, the river itself is very dirty and there’s lots of rubbish everywhere so I wouldn’t recommend coming here at all.

Even though I didn’t love Yangon, we experienced some delicious foods there. Here some of the place I’d like to mention:

999 Shan Noodle Shop – tiny shop on a busy street that is easy to overlook, however, it’s very popular among locals as well as travellers. The noodles are so delicious!
Harry’s bar – if you are on the road for a longer time and you need some western food in your stomach, burgers from this place didn’t disappoint, but be ready to pay a bit more.
19th street Chinatown – not an actual place but there are many great local food stalls lined along this street with great cheap food.
Garden Bistro – Burmese fine dining located in Kandawgyi Park. Very nice setting and the prices for food weren’t super high. I would recommend coming here, if you aren’t a fan of street food, yet you’d like to try some of the traditional dishes of Myanmar.

From Myanmar to Vietnam

From Yangon we flew to Hanoi with Vietnam Airlines. I guess you will be able to relate when I tell you that when you are traveling for a longer period of time, nothing goes 100% according to the plan. That was our case in Yangon, when Vietnam airlines changed our flight 4 hours earlier but they didn’t inform us about this tiny detail. It was only us and one Australian guy who missed the flight, but lucky for us the airline representatives had enough of courtesy to give us a hotel for the night and we could stay in the business lounge the next day as the flight was scheduled at 7 pm. Yangon airport is very nice international airport, nothing like the one in Inle Lake. And I truly enjoyed their business lounge, where we spent about 8 hours and so we didn’t see anything from Hanoi. Ah well… What is backpacking without a little bit of struggle and last minute change of plans, right? Itinerary for Myanmar

Travel Advice for Myanmar

Safety

Myanmar is pretty safe place and we didn’t experience any issues there. They appreciate tourists and they see them as an important source of income, so they don’t even try to scam you like in many other countries of Southeast Asia (we experienced the most attempts to be scammed in Vietnam).

Myanmar is a very traditional country so I’d recommend dressing modestly with covering your shoulders and knees to be allowed to enter pagodas and temples. Itinerary for Myanmar

Getting around

In Myanmar, there isn’t Grab or Uber yet, so you have to use regular taxis to get a round a city. However, you can check on Grab app how much the journey would approximately cost. We didn’t experience any attempts from taxi drivers to charge us more and they always told us the same price as in the app. If we needed a driver for the whole day, they always called us one from the hotel we were staying in and the price was set in advance. Other great option to quickly get around the city are tuk-tuks which are present everywhere. To book long distance buses I used JJ Express website and to book flights I always use Skyscanner.

What I liked about taxis and buses Myanmar was that the drivers didn’t drive like crazy! Compared to other countries we’ve visited in Southeast Asia, their driving was very moderate. Also air con wasn’t super cold, I don’t like when there’s fifty degrees Celsius outside and barely twenty inside a car or a restaurant.

Travel SIM Card

We bought Ooredoo provider right at the airport. It had 10GB of internet, plus 20 min. calls for 11,500 MMK = approximately 10 USD and would last 30 days. If you run out of data, you can recharge 1GB for 1,000 MMK. The reception was pretty good everywhere we went and the only annoying thing was that they were sending us 10 to 15 messages daily.

Currency

Before coming to Myanmar I’ve read that you can use American Dollars everywhere (but only fresh new USD bank notes), but this appeared to be an issue as in many places they’d accept only their local currency – Myanmar Kyat (MMK). My advice here is, don’t even bother with USD, withdraw or exchange MMK and you won’t have a problem with paying. Finding an ATM or an EFTPOS terminal might be a problem even in bigger cities so cash is absolutely essential!

1,000 MMK = 0.66 USD/ 0.60 EUR/ 0.97 AUD

Visa

Every nationality needs visa upon arrival to be able to visit Myanmar. The process is quite easy and fast, you can apply online via this link and after filling out the application and paying visa fee, you should get the visa on your email within a week. Don’t forget to print the papers because they are quite particular about it on customs at the airport so printing it out will save you potential troubles (for example my officer wanted to see everything and kept me at her table for very long, while Tomas just flew by so it really depends on who you get, however, it’s better to be prepared than sorry).

A single entry tourist visa cost approximately 50 USD. The price may vary depending on particular country you are from. We have EU passports, but unfortunately I can’t remember how much we actually paid.

Burmese Language Lesson

One day we got lost in the desert around Bagan, when we were trying to find a pagoda to climb on. We met a local man who invited us for breakfast to his house and even though I hesitated at first, we decided to go and followed him to his house in small village nearby. We spent a lovely morning with his family, teaching English his kids, who were university students and they taught us some Burmese language in return.

Burmese people are very lovely. They are engaging, curious, talkative and generous. And they will be very pleased if you tell them some words in their language when visiting their country, so here’s some expressions that may help you on your trip:

Hello – Minga la par
How are you? – Nay kaung lar?
I’m fine – Nay kaung tel
Thank you – Je zu par
Thank you very much – Je zu tin par tel
Nice to meet you – Tui ya thar
See you later – Noung ma tui me
Bye bye – hat ha
How much – be laou le
So beautiful (for a girl) – La tel
Very handsome (for a boy) – Chaw tel
Delicious – Sar Kaung tel
Welcome – Kyo zo par tel
Sorry – Taung pan par tel
Good luck – Kan kaung par zi
Dad – fe fe
Mum – me me
I miss you – Loan tel
I love you – Chit tel
I’m very full – Wa pi taw pi
Very hot – Poe tel (for weather and for food)
Very cold – Aye tel
Family – Mi thar su

So this was a sum-up of our time in Myanmar. It was a magical experience and it was definitely my favourite country during our trip in SE Asia! For more reasons why to come here and more information about this unique country, you can check my other article here.

Have you been to Myanmar? If not, would you like to go? Which information in this article surprised you the most about Myanmar? Please let me know in the comments!