Deciding to go to Burma was no easy task.
I had been looking into it since 2007, when I still hadn't gone to any other country in south east asia.
Back then I had no idea how I could go there, since I would have been on my own and I wasn't sure it was the right place to go.
I was keen though and I was reading a lot of material on that country.
Luckily I ended up going to Vietnam, or I wouldn't have met Steve.... but that's another story.
So, no Burma in 2007.
Then I thought about it again in 2009 and I even bought the Lonely Planet guide to gather from the "travel jetset" whether it was considered safe (and it was, it always is and probably always will be, especially because the government is so strict with its citizens on rules not to harm tourists that it's become one of the safest countries in Asia...well, at least for tourists as I said) and whether it could be done easily (that was more of a certain concern). To be honest I never really considered the boycott on tourism that many were preaching in order not to give money to the government.
I had visited several times travel forums about the pros and cons of boycotting Burma, but every time I saw that the people who had actually been there kept on saying that the locals are asking for more tourists I thought, well, if they want more tourism it means that they need it, why would companies like Intrepid and others deliberately decide not to go there?
I was curious to find out whether there were hidden agendas at stake so dig a bit more into it and found out that the reason why group companies like Intrepid were not going there because when a big group goes to Burma through an organised tour they have to pay a certain percentage of the profit to the Burmese Junta.
This wouldn't happen to independent tourists that can choose where to stay, where to eat and if to travel by train (government sponsored) or by bus or plane (all private except for one airline, but ethics a part, that particular airline is considered one of the least safe in the whole continent so there's no way I would have ever travelled with them!). On top of that big companies have to pay an annual fee to the government just to receive the licence to operate in their territory.
I always thought it was exactly the same as any other country in the world, which is indeed the case as I found out after a bit more research, but the point is that no other country in the world has such an oppressive regime as Burma (well.... I know, there's a few exceptions...).
Going on our own still sounded a bit difficult, not so much the touring around part (all the manuals tell you that the locals are super friendly and that they speak some kind of basic english), but the visa part. It was back when Burma was still denying visas to some professionals like journalists, photographers, writers, film makers etc.. and even thought that bit really didn't worry me, I remembered I had joined a couple of years before that, a facebook page that was actively opposing the burmese junta. I had no idea back then if that was enough to be denied entry but if there's one thing I've learnt from my travels is that once you've been denied a visa for a country it's damn difficult to get it approved afterwards
So, no Burma in 2009 either.
Then we thought about it again in 2011!
It was still a no-go for Intrepid, but many other tour operators were steadily going there and when I called them up and bluntly asked them if they were using government sponsored hotels and transport facilities they all swore that that was not the case, the only exception being the train ride from Yangon to Kyaiktyo and back and the one night at the Golden Rock Hotel, but that was only because there were no other hotels in the area where tourists were allowed to spend the night.
We almost took the decision right there and then to join the tour organised by Peregrine for July 2011, the only reason why we didn't was that the departure date we had chosen was not a guaranteed departure.
I was wondering what the reason might have been, since it was supposed to be in June/July, so the peak holiday season for many countries (among which the whole of Europe and USA) and I finally decided to do something I should have done a long time before that.... check the "when to go" section!!!
Ok, I'm lucky that I'm blonde because after having travelled to so many countries, not checking the seasonality was pretty dumb!
It's no excuse, but my experience of monsoon season had been very good thus far (and still is!), we had been to Japan at the end of monsoon season and we had found it refreshing (only one day of rain, admittedly did not represent much of a monsoon...), I had been to Hong Kong during monsoon season and even though the rain was bucketing down the whole time, by no means did it stop me exploring the area, we had been to South east asia during monsoon season and the only time we were hit hard was when we took the boat ride from Chau Doc to Phnom Penn (oh boy how soaked we got!), but that was actually kind of fun! We had been to Laos by the end of the monsoon season as well and we only got wet once....
Anyway, we found out that whereas the north is pretty much ok in July, going to the Golden Rock was not an option, there were far too many stories of people getting soaked and miserable during the ascent to the rock and then having to go back empty handed because there was so much rain that they didn't even see it, or they went all the way to the base camp but they couldn't even climb because the rain was torrential and it had transformed the track into a dangerous river... one couple couldn't even make it to base camp since there were no trucks to take them up!
Since one of the main reasons why I wanted to visit Burma was indeed the Golden Rock I thought it didn't make any sense to plan a trip when that particular place was almost impossible to visit.
So, no Burma in 2011 either.
And then 2012 came and since the end of 2011 we had kept an eye for changes on the political front in Burma and were so glad to see that things were changing, slowly, very slowly, but undeniably.
By the end of 2011 Lonely Planet had published the usual book about the top destinations for 2012 and Burma was one of the top 10!
That did it, I thought, well, there's no way now that companies like Intrepid can still boycott it!!!
It would be crazy not to go, something's moving and it's moving fast!
By January 2012 Lonely Planet released a new version of the guide Myanmar (Burma). I think I was one of the first persons in Sydney who bought it!
The famous beginning section that was present in the 2009 version about "Should you go?" had been replaced by an account of how much things had changed in the past 12 months and everything was presented in such a way that going did not raise any ethical concern any more.
We're always a bit skeptical when it comes to Lonely Planet, but this time we agreed. It seemed just a matter of being careful not to give money to the Junta, but according to many Tornthree forum threads it wasn't that difficult, especially since the infamous government sponsored hotels were in decay and absurdly expensive compared to the privately owned ones and I've already talked about the government owned airline.
The only thing we still needed to decide was whether to go with a tour company or on our own.
The advantages of going with a tour were that we wouldn't have had to worry about a thing, BUT the disadvantages were far more important: first we learnt that locals do not actually welcome big tour groups (and this was actually confirmed once we got there, we were told more than once by the locals we stroke conversation with, that big tour companies are disrupting the delicate balance between local facilities and foreign investors' ones, with their demand for BIG boats, BIG buses, BIG restaurants that can accommodate groups of 15-20 people, locals simply DON'T have BIG facilities so they often see their business been taken over by chinese investors who know all about BIG groups), secondly we just couldn't find a tour operator that went to all the places we wanted to visit, in particular it seemed that the Golden Rock was not in the itinerary or if it was it took far too many days overall.
We then thought about checking out some local travel agencies to see if we could organise a tour with them and found a lot of good feed backs on Santa Maria Travel from Yangon.
We got in touch with them and I have to say they helped us a lot with the organisation of our itinerary.
We knew where we wanted to go and they helped us by booking the plane tickets and a few hotels.
When we finally got there everything was booked, up until the last day, except for a few bus rides and a train ride that could not be booked online or on the phone, but that represented no problem whatsoever once we got there.
Well, a part from the train ride back to Yangon from the Golden Rock... that was a bit of a pain, but I'll let Steve talk about it, since he loved it so much ;)
Many of the things we expected were confirmed, the locals love to talk to tourists, they do it sometimes to improve their english, sometimes just out of curiosity and they took a LOT of photos of us, they're not too used to foreigners yet and our fair skin and my blonde hair must have looked pretty weird to them.
Burma is a wonderful country, the sights were amazing and never were we disappointed with what we had decided to visit.
I thought that I would have been tired of visiting temples in Bagan but the truth is that there are so many and they are so different one from the other that I would have wanted to spend more time there!
And the Golden Rock was just like I've imagined it, simply breathtaking!!!! Worth the trouble of getting there with the world's most uncomfortable bus and also worth the bloody 2 hours climb, so freaking steep you feel like you're going to fall backwards at times!
I would still recommend not joining a tour, not only for ethical reasons but also because that way you get really in touch with the burmese people and that was the highlight of our trip.
However things are changing so quickly that I can't really be sure about anything that concerns Burma.
I think I might have to go back some day!
I had been looking into it since 2007, when I still hadn't gone to any other country in south east asia.
Back then I had no idea how I could go there, since I would have been on my own and I wasn't sure it was the right place to go.
I was keen though and I was reading a lot of material on that country.
Luckily I ended up going to Vietnam, or I wouldn't have met Steve.... but that's another story.
So, no Burma in 2007.
Then I thought about it again in 2009 and I even bought the Lonely Planet guide to gather from the "travel jetset" whether it was considered safe (and it was, it always is and probably always will be, especially because the government is so strict with its citizens on rules not to harm tourists that it's become one of the safest countries in Asia...well, at least for tourists as I said) and whether it could be done easily (that was more of a certain concern). To be honest I never really considered the boycott on tourism that many were preaching in order not to give money to the government.
I had visited several times travel forums about the pros and cons of boycotting Burma, but every time I saw that the people who had actually been there kept on saying that the locals are asking for more tourists I thought, well, if they want more tourism it means that they need it, why would companies like Intrepid and others deliberately decide not to go there?
I was curious to find out whether there were hidden agendas at stake so dig a bit more into it and found out that the reason why group companies like Intrepid were not going there because when a big group goes to Burma through an organised tour they have to pay a certain percentage of the profit to the Burmese Junta.
This wouldn't happen to independent tourists that can choose where to stay, where to eat and if to travel by train (government sponsored) or by bus or plane (all private except for one airline, but ethics a part, that particular airline is considered one of the least safe in the whole continent so there's no way I would have ever travelled with them!). On top of that big companies have to pay an annual fee to the government just to receive the licence to operate in their territory.
I always thought it was exactly the same as any other country in the world, which is indeed the case as I found out after a bit more research, but the point is that no other country in the world has such an oppressive regime as Burma (well.... I know, there's a few exceptions...).
Going on our own still sounded a bit difficult, not so much the touring around part (all the manuals tell you that the locals are super friendly and that they speak some kind of basic english), but the visa part. It was back when Burma was still denying visas to some professionals like journalists, photographers, writers, film makers etc.. and even thought that bit really didn't worry me, I remembered I had joined a couple of years before that, a facebook page that was actively opposing the burmese junta. I had no idea back then if that was enough to be denied entry but if there's one thing I've learnt from my travels is that once you've been denied a visa for a country it's damn difficult to get it approved afterwards
So, no Burma in 2009 either.
Then we thought about it again in 2011!
It was still a no-go for Intrepid, but many other tour operators were steadily going there and when I called them up and bluntly asked them if they were using government sponsored hotels and transport facilities they all swore that that was not the case, the only exception being the train ride from Yangon to Kyaiktyo and back and the one night at the Golden Rock Hotel, but that was only because there were no other hotels in the area where tourists were allowed to spend the night.
We almost took the decision right there and then to join the tour organised by Peregrine for July 2011, the only reason why we didn't was that the departure date we had chosen was not a guaranteed departure.
I was wondering what the reason might have been, since it was supposed to be in June/July, so the peak holiday season for many countries (among which the whole of Europe and USA) and I finally decided to do something I should have done a long time before that.... check the "when to go" section!!!
Ok, I'm lucky that I'm blonde because after having travelled to so many countries, not checking the seasonality was pretty dumb!
It's no excuse, but my experience of monsoon season had been very good thus far (and still is!), we had been to Japan at the end of monsoon season and we had found it refreshing (only one day of rain, admittedly did not represent much of a monsoon...), I had been to Hong Kong during monsoon season and even though the rain was bucketing down the whole time, by no means did it stop me exploring the area, we had been to South east asia during monsoon season and the only time we were hit hard was when we took the boat ride from Chau Doc to Phnom Penn (oh boy how soaked we got!), but that was actually kind of fun! We had been to Laos by the end of the monsoon season as well and we only got wet once....
Anyway, we found out that whereas the north is pretty much ok in July, going to the Golden Rock was not an option, there were far too many stories of people getting soaked and miserable during the ascent to the rock and then having to go back empty handed because there was so much rain that they didn't even see it, or they went all the way to the base camp but they couldn't even climb because the rain was torrential and it had transformed the track into a dangerous river... one couple couldn't even make it to base camp since there were no trucks to take them up!
Since one of the main reasons why I wanted to visit Burma was indeed the Golden Rock I thought it didn't make any sense to plan a trip when that particular place was almost impossible to visit.
So, no Burma in 2011 either.
And then 2012 came and since the end of 2011 we had kept an eye for changes on the political front in Burma and were so glad to see that things were changing, slowly, very slowly, but undeniably.
By the end of 2011 Lonely Planet had published the usual book about the top destinations for 2012 and Burma was one of the top 10!
That did it, I thought, well, there's no way now that companies like Intrepid can still boycott it!!!
It would be crazy not to go, something's moving and it's moving fast!
By January 2012 Lonely Planet released a new version of the guide Myanmar (Burma). I think I was one of the first persons in Sydney who bought it!
The famous beginning section that was present in the 2009 version about "Should you go?" had been replaced by an account of how much things had changed in the past 12 months and everything was presented in such a way that going did not raise any ethical concern any more.
We're always a bit skeptical when it comes to Lonely Planet, but this time we agreed. It seemed just a matter of being careful not to give money to the Junta, but according to many Tornthree forum threads it wasn't that difficult, especially since the infamous government sponsored hotels were in decay and absurdly expensive compared to the privately owned ones and I've already talked about the government owned airline.
The only thing we still needed to decide was whether to go with a tour company or on our own.
The advantages of going with a tour were that we wouldn't have had to worry about a thing, BUT the disadvantages were far more important: first we learnt that locals do not actually welcome big tour groups (and this was actually confirmed once we got there, we were told more than once by the locals we stroke conversation with, that big tour companies are disrupting the delicate balance between local facilities and foreign investors' ones, with their demand for BIG boats, BIG buses, BIG restaurants that can accommodate groups of 15-20 people, locals simply DON'T have BIG facilities so they often see their business been taken over by chinese investors who know all about BIG groups), secondly we just couldn't find a tour operator that went to all the places we wanted to visit, in particular it seemed that the Golden Rock was not in the itinerary or if it was it took far too many days overall.
We then thought about checking out some local travel agencies to see if we could organise a tour with them and found a lot of good feed backs on Santa Maria Travel from Yangon.
We got in touch with them and I have to say they helped us a lot with the organisation of our itinerary.
We knew where we wanted to go and they helped us by booking the plane tickets and a few hotels.
When we finally got there everything was booked, up until the last day, except for a few bus rides and a train ride that could not be booked online or on the phone, but that represented no problem whatsoever once we got there.
Well, a part from the train ride back to Yangon from the Golden Rock... that was a bit of a pain, but I'll let Steve talk about it, since he loved it so much ;)
Many of the things we expected were confirmed, the locals love to talk to tourists, they do it sometimes to improve their english, sometimes just out of curiosity and they took a LOT of photos of us, they're not too used to foreigners yet and our fair skin and my blonde hair must have looked pretty weird to them.
Burma is a wonderful country, the sights were amazing and never were we disappointed with what we had decided to visit.
I thought that I would have been tired of visiting temples in Bagan but the truth is that there are so many and they are so different one from the other that I would have wanted to spend more time there!
And the Golden Rock was just like I've imagined it, simply breathtaking!!!! Worth the trouble of getting there with the world's most uncomfortable bus and also worth the bloody 2 hours climb, so freaking steep you feel like you're going to fall backwards at times!
I would still recommend not joining a tour, not only for ethical reasons but also because that way you get really in touch with the burmese people and that was the highlight of our trip.
However things are changing so quickly that I can't really be sure about anything that concerns Burma.
I think I might have to go back some day!
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