SEA Games 2013 in Myanmar

So I went to Myanmar in December last year. I did quite a lot of travelling there. I went to Yangon, Bagan, Mandalay and Pyin Oo Lwin. Of course, I went to Naypyitaw as well because the opening ceremony for the SEA Games was held there.

I reached Naypyitaw on the 9th day of my trip at Myanmar.

A little bit of background of Naypyitaw:

Nyapyitaw is the current capital of Myanmar. It is the 3rd largest city in the country. The government ministries are all shifted to Naypyitaw because it is more strategically located. The city is divided into different zones: Residential, Military, Ministry, Hotel.

Bus terminal in Naypyitaw

Because Naypyitaw is a very new city, the infrastructure and roadworks are totally different from the the other places that I have went in Myanmar. Naypyitaw is definitely cleaner and more organised. And for the same reason, is is so clean that they have nothing there. All I see there were residential area, governments offices and hotels. I can count the number of shopping malls there with 1 hand. This is definitely not one of the spot that I would go to if SEA Games wasn't held there.The places are so well divided that all I saw in one zone were all hotels, and the next zone all the residential houses, and so on. The hotels are not even strategically located in the city for easy access. Why would I even want to stay there?

About the place, it is definitely neat and tidy, but there is nothing to do there and everywhere is inconvenient from the hotel. I wouldn't anyone to go there unless u have something to do there, like SEA Games this time.

Ticket Sale Centre

Before that we had already purchased the tickets for the opening ceremony, so we just need to collect our tickets from the sale centre.

Tickets for foreigners

Tickets for locals

The tickets that we got were the first class seats. We got mixture of locals and foreigners in the group so I got to see the difference in the tickets. The first class seats for foreigners cost USD50.00 while local can get it for 5000Kyat  (~USD5.00). That is like 10x the price for foreigners! Well, I could understand that they wanted to give some privileges for the locals so I am willing to pay for the high cost.

We still cannot get into event area with just the ticket itself . We still need to get a clearance pass from the Accreditation Centre. It is located near the event area (Wuuna Theikdi Stadium).

Accreditation Centre

When we reached there, we were shocked by the amount of people queuing to get their clearance pass.

Long queue at Accreditation Centre (Day 1)

There was a super long queue waiting to make their clearance pass and it was moving so slowly. Everyone there was complaining, but we still have to suck it up and queue in order to get our clearance pass. After an hour or so under the hot sun and complaining, we decided to come back the next day early in the morning before they open to queue.

We left the place and went to a restaurant which I don't even know where is was to eat. The food there was decent because it was a restaurant after all. We had our dinner and we just head back to rest for the day since there wasn't anywhere else that we could go and it was rather inconvenient.

So, the next day, we woke up early in the morning and went back to the Accreditation Centre hoping that the queue wouldn't be so long. But guess what, there was a long queue already! So we quickly joined the queue before it gets any longer. Somehow I overheard that foreigners were able to cut queue and make the clearance pass first, so I decided to give it a try and it was true! Thinking of the time I had wasted queuing, not knowing that we could actually cut queue sucks.

Long queue at Accreditation Centre (Day 2)

Anyway, that was the queue when I left the centre. It was horrible. Imagine that night itself was the opening ceremony and so many people still couldn't get their clearance pass even though they have the tickets. I would be cursing and swearing if I couldn't get the pass.

Clearance pass!

Yup, that's the clearance pass that I finally got. Anyway I heard that in the later part of the day, because the accreditation centre couldn't handle the crowd, they allowed them to watch the opening ceremony as long as they have their tickets. They just kept changing their rules and regulations.

So while going to the opening ceremony, the roads around it were all closed. We had to take a shuttle bus to go in and dropped us off somewhere near the stadium.

Flying Panda with Wuuna Theikdi Stadium

As we go walked along, there were so many families and friends happily going to watch the ceremony. Myanmar hasn't host SEA Games for more than a decade, and I am pretty sure the locals were all excited about it.

We were given a goodie bag when we enter the stadium.

Goodie bag

The goodie bag include some fruits (orange and apple), cakes and biscuits. Audiences were not allowed to bring in any form of bottle or cans by the way. They were so strict about it because I saw the security confiscated all the drinks that the guy in front of me brought. So you know, since water wasn't allowed to be brought in, we thought water will be provided.


Yes, and they did provide water, like this...

There was plenty of water, but no disposable cups. Everyone had to share the 2 red cups there and I was like "WHAT?!?!" So what I did was to go outside and get 2 cans of 100plus from the vending machine and it was selling out fast. I was lucky to get 2 cans. After drinking the 100plus, I used it as my personal cup and filled it with water. I am not sharing the cups with everyone else!

The interior of the stadium before the ceremony starts

Anyway we got to sit on the 3rd row from the front because ours were the first class seat. Compared to the rest of the seats, our seats were somehow better than the normal ones, so I am fine with that.

We waited for the ceremony to begin.

Starting of the opening ceremony

I won't go into details of the ceremony since you get to watch it online or on tv. I would say the ceremony was done quite nicely. I like the performance except for the fireworks and sound system. We couldn't see the fireworks at all because it was right above us! That really pissed me off, really. I paid so much money to watch the ceremony and I couldn't enjoy the fireworks. I bet they only thought of the VIPs who sit in the middle of the stadium when planning this. Next was the sound system. It was really bad on our side. Although we could hear the music very loud and clear because the speakers were just in front of us, the speakers for the commentator weren't the same speaker as those playing the songs. We couldn't hear what they were talking at the stage.

Fireworks at the end of the ceremony

 Although, I kept complaining, the performance were good and I still get to see some fireworks near the end of the ceremony because it went off at the other side.

Group photo before we leave the stadium

Just before the president leave, we decided to take a quick group photo and left the place before the president.We were glad we did that. After that, it was a very bad jam.

I didn't managed to watch any games after the ceremony though, because I left for Yangon the following morning. I had a flight to catch.

Overall my experience at Naypyitaw wasn't really pleasant. It will not be a place for me to go again, unless I really have to go there. There isn't much to do there and I was bored. The SEA Games opening ceremony wasn't very fantastic as well. I expected better for a first class seat. Some of my friends who got the first class seats for local, they had a better view and sound. Also, they had coffee and tea served for them. We paid 10x more than them but we didn't get any of those stuff. It was a really bad impression for the foreigners. I really hate it. They were very biased. Nonetheless, they did a good job in their security. They really put in a lot of effort in security that they neglected other aspects of the ceremony.

Anyway, the next SEA Games is going to be in Singapore. I will try my luck to get tickets for the opening ceremony as well. Then, I can compare the difference between the 2 countries.

For my reviews on other parts of Myanmar I went before SEA Games:
Yangon,
Bagan,
Mandalay and Pyin Oo Lwin

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