Well, I know this is a post that I suppose to blog long long time ago, but I don't have the time until recently.
I went to Myanmar last December, right after my
Bangkok trip. The reason that I went to Myanmar is because the SEAgames were held there too, so I thought I could go catch the opening ceremony and some games while I was there.
While in Singapore
Before flying to Myanmar, I need to get to a tourist visa from the Myanmar Embassy in Singapore.
This is the procedure to get the visa:
- Go to their website to get a appointment reservation. Follow through the steps and you will receive a queue number for the day you made your reservation.
- Prepare all the documents as stated on the website
- Prepare SGD35.00 for the tourist visa and additional SGD10.00 for their service charge. This is the first time I have to pay for service charge at an embassy. I would rather them tell me that that visa cost SGD45.00. I wasn't aware of the service charge until I am making the payment at the embassy because they didn't mention it online, so please take note.
- On the day of appointment, you can go down at anytime between 0930hr to 1200hr regardless your queue number. When I was there, it doesn't matter what queue number you have, everybody just cut queue. The trick is be there late and NOT early. If you have a queue number that is earlier than the number shown on the counter you can just cut queue to be the next one in line because your number is way in ahead. That's how they work.
- After the application, the visa could be collected in the afternoon on the day itself from 1630hr to 1730hr.
- For anymore information on visa application, you can visit their website.
- Don't bother finding money changer to change your money to Kyat (Myanmar currency) because there isn't many money changer that has Kyat for exchange. Simply exchange for USD and convert to Kyat while you were at Myanmar. Most tourist places in Myanmar accept USD as well. You can conveniently take exchange rate to be USD1.00=1000Kyat for easy calculation
Myanmar, Yangon
Day 1
I took Air Asia from Bangkok Don Mueang Airport to Yangon International Airport. To go to Myanmar, it is always good to go with someone who can speak Burmese because many locals there doesn't really speak other languages. Luckily for me, I have CT who can speak Burmese with me, so I felt safe there.
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| Yangon International Airport |
Look at the crowd there at the airport. I was told that because Aung San Suu Kyi is coming back to Myanmar as well about the same time from Australia. So all the supporters were there to welcome her. Luckily for me, I had someone there to pick us up from the airport when we touched down if not we would have been caught in the crowd too. We had the chauffeur for the next for days in Yangon as well.
When we touched down it was about 1900hr, so we decided to kick start our tour that night by visiting the famous
Shwe Dagon Temple.
This is an iconic place that you must go when you are at Yangon. You need not be a Buddhist to go there, I am not a Buddhist for your information. To enter the temple, tourist need to pay a small sum of money for entrance. The place itself is filled with so many buddha statues that if you were to pray to all of them, I doubt you can do it in 1 day. If you have the free time and wish to know more about the culture and stories, there are freelance tour guides there that you can hire them to bring you around the temple.
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| Map of Shwe Dagon Temple |
There isn't many photos for me to upload here because it was night time and most of my photos were badly taken since I am not using any fantastic camera there.
After the temple, we headed to a restaurant called
Pan Swel Taw for dinner. It is located in Ahlone Township.
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| Pan Swel Taw Restaurant |
It was a pretty decent restaurant selling Chinese cuisine. The pricing is decent as well, but it is considered on the expensive side for the locals though.
Here is what I have ate at the restaurant:
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| Grilled Prawn |
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| Tom Yum Soup |
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| Stir Fried Mix Vegetables |
Day 2
In the morning, CT woke me up so that we could go to
Ahlone Market for the
noodle salad that she craved for.
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| Noodle Salad |
The market is relatively dark in the inside so I have to use flash to take a picture of the dish. When preparing the salad, the lady actually mixed all the ingredient together using her bare hands, so I am not very sure how hygienic it would be but I am lucky that nothing happened to me.
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| Lady preparing noodle salad with bare hands |
That aside, I like the salad. It suits my taste bud very well. I know Peninsula Plaza in Singapore sells this as well. So you could get it without travelling all the way to Myanmar. Of course, the ones in Singapore will be much more hygienic and more costly. you can also find other other food that I had there in Singapore as well.
The salad is just an appetizer, we headed to this place called Lucky Seven for more breakfast.
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| Pae Palatar (Prata with bean paste) |
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| Chicken Prata |
Both dishes that I tried is quite similar to the Roti Prata in Singapore. The difference is the gravy that they go along with. I preferred the
chicken prata because the chicken taste very good and goes well with the prata. The
pae palatar isn't that bad either, the prata is fried till crispy and the bean paste taste good as well.
Being someone who likes to swim, I went to the
Kokine Swim Club for a tour.
This place is actually a club mainly for the expats to swim and gym. So you actually need to have membership to enter. I didn't go there to swim, but I requested them to allow us in for a while to view the place. The people there were nice enough to let us in for a quick peek.
After that, we dropped by the SEAgames Expo since it is along the way to see what they have there. I will not blog much about the SEAgames here as this post is about my trip Myanmar. I will blog about it in another post.
Next stop is another must go place in Yangon, Bogyoke Aung San Market. It is located in the city center.
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| Bogyoke Aung San Market |
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| Inside of the market |
Here's a little history of the place:
This place is named after Aung San Suu Kyi's Father. "Bogyoke" in Burmese means general. Her father used to be a national hero who fight for the freedom of the country, and this place was named after him.
This place is filled with Burmese clothing, jades, and gems now. Anyway, Myanmar is well known for their jades and gems, so if you are intending to get any, this is the place you should go.
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| Former Myanmar Port Authority |
Beside the market stands the former Myanmar Port Authority. There isn't anybody using the building at the moment, so it is empty, but it sure looks nice on the outside.
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| Raw Lotus Seed |
While shopping, we bought the raw lotus seed to bite on. It taste like those peas that we usually eat.
After all the shopping (I didn't get anything from there though), we headed to the famous
Shwe Pu Zun Bakery House.
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| Shwe Pu Zun Bakery house |
I was told that this shop used to be just a small bakery, and because of it's delicious breads, they made it to where they were today. They do have a wide variety of bread, cakes and pastry. I cannot take any picture in there because it wasn't allowed. We then headed to the cafe next door (which is also owned by them), to try their popular koolfee.
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| Strawberry Koolfee |
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| Chocolate Koolfee |
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| Cake Ice Cream |
Koolfee is similar to ice cream just that it is done the Indian way. To me, it doesn't taste fantastic but it was a good to have on a hot day that day.
After relaxing in the cafe enjoying the air conditioning for a while, we dropped by another iconic tourist attraction,
Karaweik Palace.
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| Karaweik Palace |
This place looks very grand and it is a restaurant with international buffet. The price isn't cheap because it is a tourist attractions. We decided not to eat here partly because of the price and we were not in the mood for buffet as well. I have heard good reviews about the place, so I guess the food is pretty good.
Not having dinner at the Karaweik Palace, we decided to have our dinner at a roadside stall.
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| Kyay Oh |
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| Kyay Oh Si Chat |
Both dishes that we ordered is called Kyay Oh, just that Si Chat means "without soup" in Burmese. This is the Myanmar version of meat ball noodle. Look at their servings of meatball in each bowl, there are more meatballs than the noodle. I love their portion of meat. This was totally awesome, satisfying serving of meat.
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| Hanging packed food on the wall |
I find this rather interesting. The stall actually used the wall to hang packed food so that the customers can pick it up later. It is quite a brilliant idea that i don't see in Singapore.
Shortly after dinner, I started vomiting and diarrhea. I was admitted into the hospital for the rest of the night. I was suspected to have food poisoning. Thinking back, it might be the ice cream that I ate since it was the only thing that I ate that matches the timing of my vomit and diarrhea. The Kyay Oh was not digested because I vomited them out and the breakfast was too long ago for me to vomit only at night. This is only my guess, it might not have been the ice cream, so don't sue me for any accusation please.
Day 3
I shall skip the whole part of my hospitalization which was not pleasant and I only got discharge in the afternoon. For the remaining of the day, I was resting and not being able to eat much. I just drank plenty of water.
Day 4
When I woke up in the morning, CT decided that I shouldn't be eating anything oily since I just recover so we went for dim sum.
The style of serving dim sum is different from Singapore as well. In the restaurant that we went, all the dim sum were actually served to the patrons so that they do not need to make any orders. The untouched dim sum were then returned and only those dim sum eaten were counted and paid for.
We went back to the city center again and explore the remaining area that we have not covered. Because I have just recovered, I was still too weak to walk a lot. So we went to the Thiripyitsaya Sky Bistro located at level 20 of Sakura Tower. Unlike Singapore, Myanmar does not have many high rise building. Level 20 is considered high over there and I could see the whole city from there. It was a nice sight.
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| Club Sandwich |
I ordered their club sandwich to eat and it was delicious. The wedges were quite little though, but it's fine since I can't eat much either.
We continued exploring the area after a short rest and we found this temple located in the middle of the road.
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| Sule Temple |
We found it interesting that this temple is actually located in the middle of the road, so we decided to go in and have a look. There was quite a lot of tourist inside as well. For this temple, unlike Shwe Dagon temple, I did not have to pay to enter.
After that I went back to rest as we were travelling out of Yangon later that night.
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