Things to be remind when travel in Yangon, Myanmar

With last minute invitation from my husband, I decided to fly to Yangon, Myanmar for a short trip while my husband having a business trip here. I am a bit excited because this will be my third trip within two months.

Although my husband had been traveling here for business for quite a number of times, but this is the first time he invited me. I think he might been well surveyed here and can show me around. But this is not true, he had to work and I need to travel by myself. Therefore, I did a last minutes research and here I go!

4 days 3 nights trip in Yangon, Myanmar is considered a very long holiday, unless you travel to other places as well such as Mandalay, Bago, or Inne lake. If not, you will feel boring like me. I meet one Malaysian lady who always come to Myanmar for business, she felt boring too! Therefore, one or two day is enough for you to spend around in Yangon.

The places I have visited is Shwedagon Pagoda, Chauk Htat Gyi Buddha, Sule Pagoda, Karaweik hall, Kandawgyi lake, Bogyoke Aung San Market, Downtown Yangon, and St. Mary's Cathedral. There are more pagoda in town, but I just choose the significant one to visit.

Oh ya, the currency they are using is kyat. You can pay by USD but they will charge a higher price compared to kyat. Therefore, it is suggested to change your USD in kyat in airport or your hotel. When changing your dollar, the person will inspect your dollar carefully and will reject any dirty or folder notes. Hence, bring a new and nice shape dollar. Likewise, there are also different conversion rate for $100 and $50, for $100 you get more kyat.  

The most convenience transportation here is taxi and you will need to negotiation your price when you took it. I had an experience when I wanted to go to Padonmar Restaurant, but the taxi driver send me to Panda hotel. Due to difficulty to explain it in their language, I told him to send me back to my hotel. But when we reached, he asked for additional charges which I refused to pay. At last, I asked the hotel people to talk to the taxi driver who is not good in English. Learning from this experience, I will normally showed them the full address. Another things to mention, most of the taxi is without air condition (a/c), one of the taxi driver told me that for air condition taxi will normally charge higher price than non a/c.