Travel Day 1139 – Bangkok to Yangon, MYANMAR
Since all my preparations in Bangkok had worked out in the end, I finally found myself on the way towards this somewhat mysterious and unknown country called Myanmar…
Water-Ways and Rivers in Myanmar
But first, getting to the airport was not as smooth and easy as it had been when I was going from Bangkok to Colombo on the Cheap, mainly because my budget flight was leaving from Don Mueang and not from the big Suvarnabhumi Airport. This meant that I started my trip in the same fashion by walking and catching the boat towards Siam Square, but then I had to wait for the correct bus. By the time the bus finally arrived I was already awfully late, leaving me only with the chance to jump off the slow-moving vehicle again and going all the way to Don Mueang by metered taxi…
Even if this wasn’t the cheapest solution possible, at least I managed to catch my flight while thinking how poorly connected this airport really was to the city. Even more so poorly connected seemed to be the airport in Yangon as it appeared to be an expensive 8 dollar and one hour taxi ride away from the city itself. Luckily I had found a hotel online with a free airport pickup and so I didn’t have to worry about getting into town and where to spend the first night in this somewhat strange country…
Modern Airport with Visa on Arrival
Actually because of my peace of mind I could fully enjoy the arrival in Myanmar. While flying into Yangon I noticed already how green everything was and how much water there seemed to be on the ground. In fact there appeared to be more water-ways and rivers than roads and everything seemed to be barely developed although we were flying in close proximity to Yangon. In stark contrast to that stood the modern airport of Yangon. Having been to less developed countries before, I expected the airport to be as basic as it gets, but everything turned out to be surprisingly modern…
When we parked the aircraft, I could see the belt boys arriving to fetch the luggage from the belly of the plane and to my big surprise those guys were playing around with their modern smart phones while they were doing their work. Yangon International Airport itself was not only a modern structure, but it also had a big Visa on Arrival counter and numerous modern ATMs, catering to international customers. This was all very surprising to me as I expected Myanmar to be years behind all modern developments…
Modern ATMs everywhere in Yangon
Things looked obviously a little bit different once we arrived in the center of the city. As it appeared, my hotel was located a little bit away from the immediate center of Yangon and the entire area could be described as somewhat sketchy looking, at least in darkness. Everything was extremely run-down and dirty, reminding me somewhat of Kolkata in India, but on the other hand everything looked also very much Asian. It was all very strange and I didn’t quite know what to make out of this Southeast Asia meets India kind of environment…
So for today we left it at a short stroll around the block in the dark while trying to get some food in an equally strange restaurant. The restaurant seemed to be called 7-11 and the menu was more than badly translated, leaving us with a plate of fried noodles after trying to communicate with the owner about the different food options. Boy, Myanmar was already throwing some surprises at us and if everybody spoke so little English, travelling around really promised to become a good piece of work…
Find all Yangon Photos here.
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