Bring In the New

"We met before, didn't we," said Luisa, a Burmese-American woman who'd sat across the aisle from me on the flight from Bagan to Heho. We were waiting for our baggage, which was on a wheeled cart heading our way.

"Yes, at the vegetarian restaurant." I remembered her because she'd been from Burma and spoke Burmese, but had grown up in San Francisco and now lived in Hong Kong. She was traveling with April, a young Hong Kong woman—the two worked together at a networking equipment company.

We chatted casually, and then she invited me to share their taxi to Nyuangshwe, the town just north of Inle Lake. Thank goodness! It's about $25 for that hour-long taxi fare. Now my fare was down to about $10 if we tipped the driver as well as paying him.

Biking Around Bagan

I'd realized too late that I needed to change more money. Yesterday, I'd gone to the money changer at the top of the little restaurant strip in Nyaung U. I'd spotted a brand-new ATM there as well as a small bank, but the ATM had no power and the little bank was shut.

I believe this ATM, and another I saw later, will be up-and-running soon. My guess is this is part of Burma's rapid shift to upgrade their tourism facilities, which is probably part of the whole plan in allowing an opposition party. But I am cynical. And I also fell for it.

Closed! The money changer was shut. I looked at the opening hours again. I was there in plenty of time.

Sunrise Over the Center and Northern Plain Temples

I traveled by pick-up truck, horse and cart, bicycle, and taxi while in Bagan. This view was courtesy a taxi, as I didn't fancy cycling or taking a horse at 5:15 AM to a temple with a good view of the sunrise.

The damage was 8,000 kyat to go, wait a few hours, then come back. If I could do it again, I'd go way later, right at sunrise, since I was after the morning light, not the actual sun. I know what the sun looks like.

Sunset from Pyathada Paya

I nearly turned away and left when I saw the hordes of excited schoolchildren running through the halls and crowded the tiny staircase up Pyathada Paya for sunset over Bagan.

I'd hired a taxi driver to bring me out and back to Nyaung U, via the transportation coordinator at the town market. His friend had agreed to take me out, wait, and bring me back for 8,000 kyat. I could have gone cheaper by bicycle, but I didn't want to be biking after dark.

The guidebook had described Pyathada as having just been discovered by the tour groups. Which, even if all the tour groups in town were there, it still would have been okay. The pagoda has a huge level top and could handle a lot of people. But the busloads of Burmese schoolchildren all seeming to be on their first trip away from home was too much. They pushed, they screamed, they ran.

Bagan by Bus

I’d been caught off-guard by the cost of things in Burma. It’s not that it’s expensive exactly—but prices on everything have gone up for everyone (not just tourists), and there is a cartel of tourist pricing that I hadn’t managed to get around. Airport taxis and the like are set, and while they’re not exorbitant, they’re not market rate either.

Ultimately, tourist pricing isn’t really something I’m sure of one way or the other. It’s good that people have a way of making money, and there is no doubt that I have more money than the rural people of Burma (I saw plenty of middle and upper class people in Yangon so this isn’t universal across the country), but then the fact is that’s MY money we’re talking about, and suddenly my ethics are challenged once I realize that holy hell, it’s $25 for a taxi from the airport in Inle Lake and I have to go to and from that airport. And there aren’t many ways of getting cash in this country, so once the cash in my pocket is gone, it's gone.

There are ways around this. For one thing, don’t take a plane. That right there saves you a ton. The bus fare for the trip from Bagan to Inle Lake is probably less than the taxi ride from the airport. And buses tend to let you off in the center of town, or close enough to walk. Another way around it is to do what the guidebook says and walk away from the airport, hoping to catch a taxi off-premises, where it’s not necessarily as set. Ultimately, I might just go along with it and pay the $25 to some taxi driver who needs it and works for it, but then there’s one small problem.

Shwezigon Pagoda

My hotel room was crappy, but I was conveniently located right across the street from Shwezigon Paya, a temple with a large golden stupa. (At least this seemed convenient until the monks started chanting and music kicked in over a loudspeaker at five the next morning—then right when I got back to sleep, the hot air balloons drifted over town with their sighing sounds.)

I walked along a colonnaded pathway to get to the temple from the road, following a few monks in dark red robes.

Old Bagan With Mr. Ed

I was in Bagan—Nyaung U, actually, the small village nearby—and couldn't check into my hotel room until one.

Maybe I'd just head down to the temples and check a few out. I'd studied the guidebook on the plane (on my iPad), and worked out to highlight the things I wanted to remember.

I knew I wanted to go a few miles down the road to Old Bagan. But how?

"Is there a bus?" I asked the hotel receptionist.

"Yes, it is here. No, here." She looked puzzled, staring at a map. "Go to the market."

I went to the market. There was a "bus," which here is a pick-up truck with a covered bed. The bed is lined with two wooden benches. I'd been on these before in Thailand and Laos.

"Old Bagan?" I asked the transportation coordinator. He was a man in his mid-twenties with betelnut-stained teeth.

He motioned to the truck.

"What time?" I pointed at my wrist, which did not have a watch, but he knew what I meant.

From Yangon to Bagan

Toby, my friend in Chiang Mai, had written to me in early October. He'd met a guy who was working in Burma, and that guy reported that the tourist circuit there was overloaded. There aren't enough hotels for the number of tourists seeking rooms.

"You better book," said Toby.

And I listened. Toby is not an idiot—when he tells me to do something, I pay attention. And so I scoured the web and the LP guidebook for contact details for hotels. I cross-referenced the hotels I found with TripAdvisor reviews and searched for other postings. I worked out quickly that the guy Toby had met had been absolutely right. Tourist Burma is bursting at the seams, and I was going at high season. Which I had to, because of my teaching schedule.

I'd e-mailed dozens of hotels, and after hearing back from only a few, I started calling by Skype. I scoured hotel Facebook pages for more current information. I sent e-mails again when I didn't get an answer after a few days.

Eventually, I had bookings for everything but one night in Inle Lake. I had to take what I could get aside from Yangon and Mandalay, and what I could get in Bagan was the cheapest room at a hotel called Aung Mingalar, located on the outskirts of the village of Nyaung U.

An Evening at Shwedagon Pagoda

I thought I'd take a bus, but I wimped out and caught a taxi to Shwedagon Pagoda, a famed golden pagoda that rises high over Yangon. I wandered around for a while, spoke to a monk, became disoriented, and ultimately lost where I'd left my shoes.

A security guard had to help me. Find my shoes.

How embarrassing.

More Shwedagon photos are here. 

Yangon

This place is crawling with tourists.