19
Jul

Thanks God, I’m in Burma!

   Posted by: Chip   in Backpacker's Challenges, Burma

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I’m in Burma!

I still can’t believe it, I’m here in Burma – a close country, hard to get in and hard to get out; one of few countries that are still under dictatorships; the only country in SEA that the Vietnamese need visa to visit; yet I’ve also heard that it’s an amazing & beautiful country. 6 months ago, I tried but failed. I planned to go to Yangon from Kuala Lumpur, transiting in Chiang Mai but then all flights to Yangon this week were cancelled which gave me an unexpected trip around Chiang Mai.

This time, I planned to cross border from Thailand to Burma, and then from Burma to India or Bangladesh. After few researches, I soon realized that crossing border both in and out of Burma is impossible as all border lands are locked (you can cross Thailand – Burma border to visit some places in Burma, but you won’t be able to travel deep into Burmese territory). I had to take flights instead. However, since Burma is under sanction of most countries, flights to and from Yangon are extremely limited. There used to be direct flights from Yangon to Kolkata by Indian Airlines but the route was terminated for some reasons that I don’t know. The cheapest way to go from Yangon to Bangladesh or India is to transit in Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur by Air Asia. I booked the tickets during promotion time and it cost me 100USD for both tickets from Yangon to Kuala Lumpur & from Kuala Lumpur to Kolkata.

Burma’s government just issued a new law that allows tourists to apply for visa on arrival, provided that you have a return flight ticket, 2 passport photos, reservation at a licensed hotel and at least 300USD. The process turned out to be very fast and easy. You just need to fill in a form and pay $30, they don’t even ask for your return flight ticket or hotel booking. Unlike in other country, people at Yangon airport are friendly and they smile all the time :-) I think the government is trying to attract more tourists.

You might want to ask why I use “Burma” instead of “Myanmar”. I just had a talk with Chan – a Burmese friend of mine about that. Chan doesn’t like the word “Burma”, as it stands for only 1 ethnic group while there are 153 (or 154?) ethnic groups in Burma. She’s right.

Wish me luck!

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at %I:%M %p and is filed under Backpacker's Challenges, Burma. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 comments so far

chan
 1 

Hey chip, I’m very happy to read your post. I accept you can’t call “Myanmar” but I don’t agree you reason of it. The use of “Myanmar” is neither created nor introduced by the government. The origin name of our country is “Myanmar” not “Burma”. I hate my govermnet much more than you, chip. But “Burma” or “Myanmar” is nothing to do with them. One of my best teachers specialized on those kind of terms & submitted a research paper to Oxford to approve our country’s origin name is Myanmar. I don’t know why foreigners think that using “Myanmar” is appreciating Government. ;(. & one thing I let all foreigners know is that while you are using “Burma” to against government, other races feel bad of that word. Believe me, I have asked tons of other ethnic friends & they only prefer “Myanmar”. (“They” don’t include the politicians in abraod). But most of my chinese classmates don’t know the word “Burma” & they are happy to call “Myanmar. :)

& one more point here is that Myanmar are naturally happy to smile especially to foreingers. Government never push us to smile to tourists as they never never want to attract foreigners. Ther more tourists come to Myanmar, the more the government is afraid. Smile is our nature chip, not the infulence of government. :)

July 19th, 2010 at %I:%M %p
Chris
 2 

Burma or Myanmar. Harrumph. If you have a Burmese friend who says to use Myanmar, who are you to choose which name to use? Seems a bit arrogant, no? Most of the Burmese I know are ok with calling it Myanmar.

July 19th, 2010 at %I:%M %p
admin
 3 

OK, thanks Chan and Chris, I will call it Myanmar from now on :-)

July 19th, 2010 at %I:%M %p
Chann
 4 

Usually people outside Myanmar use “Burma” & people inside Myanmar use “Myanmar” but later I found out that it’s easier to use “Burma” & “Burmese” than to use “Myanmar” while speaking in English since it’s pretty difficult to pronounce “Myanmar” right.

Apart from what Chan Myae Khine had said & no matter how inconvenient it is, we still prefer to be called “Myanmar” because “Burma” & “Burmese” seem to bear insulting meaning as those terms were used when Myanmar was a British Colony.

July 19th, 2010 at %I:%M %p
chan
 5 

thx chip :D

August 1st, 2010 at %I:%M %p
Null
 6 

Poor experince or a kid´s journey.

September 12th, 2010 at %I:%M %p

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