While we only visited Burma for a short three weeks we still managed to pack a lot into our trip. We saw thousands of temples, from the famous, glittering Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon to the many crumbling, ancient stupas of Bagan. We skimmed over the incredibly vast Lake Inle, explored the historical Mandalay, saw some of the most beautiful sunsets and sunrises and best of all, we met some of the most friendly people on our travels so far - here are our Burma video highlights.
In February and March 2014 we flew out of our beloved Thailand to the unknown land of Burma. Although Burma was one country where we needed a lot of preparation, with Amy as planner extraordinaire, it was a cinch! We flew into Yangon from Bangkok and we organised our Burma visas and US$ during the two weeks before we entered. We spent our time visiting the main tourist sights of Yangon, Mandalay, Bagan, Kalaw and Lake Inle. We booked most of our accommodation in advance and we arranged all of our domestic transport through our hotels and left the country by flying back to Bangkok from Yangon. Here’s how much it cost to visit Burma for 20 days.
Since Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) recommended that the tourism boycott of Burma be lifted in 2010, the number of people travelling to the country has steadily increased. However, the NLD urges tourists to boycott package tours and cruises as they benefit the ruling government rather than the local Burmese people; with that in mind, here are some tips on how to get around Burma independently.
How do you plan your trip to Burma? It isn’t as easy as heading to other nearby countries like Laos, Cambodia or Thailand. You can’t just cross overland into the country, you can’t just pick up a visa on arrival at the airport, you need all your money in crisp, unmarked US$ and you have to book your accommodation in advance, or so we thought. Burma travel planning is full-on! Read on to find out more.
Cambodia doesn’t have a wealth of options when it comes to tourist transport; there are no trains (other than the touristic bamboo train in Battambang) and flights are out of the question for budget travel. To get from city to city we had no choice but to use a mixture of buses. So read on to find out more about bus travel around Cambodia; expect breakdowns, bribes and bundles of air con! Here are our travel tips for Cambodia.
Since we found up-to-date information about how to get around Thailand hard to come by when researching our three-month trip, we’ve decided to put all we know here to (hopefully) help other travellers. So, should you travel Thailand by bus, train or plane? How long does it take to get from the north of the country to south? Here's all we know about how to get around Thailand.
Although we’d heard mixed reviews of Cambodia we were still keen to see what the country held for us. We certainly weren’t disappointed though. Other than meeting some of the friendliest and most genuine people we managed to explore the ancient temples of Angkor and learn about the more recent gruesome history at the killing fields and Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh. We checked out the circus and took the bamboo train in Battambang and spotted the endangered Irrawaddy Dolphin before heading up the Mekong to Laos’s Four Thousand Islands. Here are our Cambodia Video highlights:
Our eleventh month on the road was spent in a country that charmed, awed and saddened us: Cambodia. From temple hopping and dolphin spotting to visiting the notorious Killing Fields, our time in the country was full of activities and we fell in love with the people who treated us like true Cambodian brothers and sisters. Despite the tragic recent history and poverty in Cambodia we were surprised at how expensive it was to get from one place to another and to see Angkor Wat; here are our Cambodia travel costs for four weeks.
Kratie is a small town perched on the banks of the Mekong River about seven hours north of Phnom Penh (10 hours if your bus breaks down); this was our last stop in Cambodia before we headed back into Laos. There’s a sprinkling of guesthouses and restaurants in Kratie, although the food isn’t anywhere near as good as in the other Cambodian towns we visited and there’s also a market complete with pyjama-clad women selling their various wares. What we were really in town for though was the chance to spot some rare Irrawaddy river dolphins.
We ended our travels in 2013 with a one-month trip to Vietnam. Our journey started in the north of the country, where we discovered our favourite Asian city, Hanoi. During our week-long stay there we spent day after day in museums, palaces and temples and took an overnight boat trip in the beautiful-yet-crowded Halong Bay. We then headed south on the train to Hué to see ancient tombs and the old Citadel, continuing on from there to Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage City which wasn't quite as nice as Laos’ Luang Prabang.