planning a 4-5 week SEA trip with my gf. im wondering any anons can give me input on whether it is worth trying to work in 7-10 days in burma? this would come at the expense of something in vietnam, laos and/or thailand.
i'm not much of a SEAgay but she's never been to this part of the world. figure I might as well try and at least get a box ticked, but if its a waste of time I wont bother. byzantine and weird visa processes don't intimidate me really, I land crossed into bolivia as an american I dont think it gets worse than that.
was thinking a quick trip through the shan state then a couple of nights in mandalay and rangoon each. nothing too crazy or radical.
>Going with gf to countries with unfair judicial system and 99% conviction rate.
If some corrupt staff of the airport plants you or you gf drugs in your suitcase do you think you and your gf would be able to sourvive like 10 years in these prisons?
>suitcase
>implying
I'll do this trip with a 28L personal item sized bag probably. its SEA, I just need sandals, a few pairs of shorts and shirts and a light rain jacket. and we'll do the land crossing from thailand. not that I'm even worried about this sort of thing, link me one instance of an american having this happen to them in burma in last five years.
>Going with carry-on
Good choise.
Still you can end up in problems with justicie more easily than you think.
Be ready for anything.
I went to ukie post invasion, ethiopia when the war was on and mozambique when it was SHTF with ISIS in the north. im used to this sort of thing, I just smile and act like the dumbest motherfricker westerner they've ever seen. nobody gets threatened by stupid and jolly.
sure you did
There was an American "writer/journalist/publisher" who lived in Burma and was arrested by the gov because they knew he was a glowie. This was after the most recent coup and protests settled down and people started going back. If you aren't a glowie you are ok
The civil war looks intense still; the junta is doing drive bys <100km from the capital. Sounds like the trill excites you. You sure your gf would want to be put in that situation tho?
it looks intense, but sometimes people say shit like this and the situation on the ground is extrremely tranquil. im just trying to suss out the situation since official sources have it at do not travel and popular consensus seems to follow. the problem is the internet is full of people who have no clue what they are talking about and are just bloviating.
I figure backpackers are still wandering in there from thailand periodically. though one mark against it is I've noticed a lot of hostels are shut for the time being.
>I figure backpackers are still wandering in there from thailand periodically.
You're a bit naive.
Saw on IG a Burmese girl I went to uni with visited last month. Living “wealthy” in Naypyitaw. Clubbing and shit. I hear the city is mid but she seemed unphased by any domestic conflicts
>autist thinks it's hilarious to spam 'if you go there you'll get 10 years in prison for a fake drug charge' in every single thread
Go back to the spine snapping thing. That one's a little more entertaining at least.
It's inappropriate to go to Burma now. People are not going to be happy to see you galavanting while what's happening there. Just wait.
I was told this too in the 2000s. I regret not going. War in Iraq was as unjust as Burma junta but everyone just says who cares
>War in Iraq was as unjust as Burma junta
WTF?
>It's inappropriate to go to Burma now. People are not going to be happy to see you galavanting while what's happening there. Just wait.
people hate it when during their times of trouble, people visit see whats going on and talk about it in the wider world. They would definitely much prefer to be isolated in their suffering and no see anyone other than those also suffering.
they also REALLY dislike it when they maybe can make some money to ease that trouble- they definitely couldn't stand that at all.
Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but yes they do get angry at foreigners
Its never the poor that make money off of foreign tourism
I disagree. Look at Thailand during covid. It was the poor that suffered from the lockdown and lack of tourism, and it went on for so long just because it mostly affected the poor. Myanmar isn't as heavily dependent on tourists but it's the working class who benefit more than the government and the wealthy. There's also a good argument that the more foreign eyes in Myanmar, the less shit the government will pull in plain sight of them, the more stories about Myanmar that will get out, and the more the rest of the world will care what is happening.
Have you ever considered that myanmar qnd thailand have nothing in common in terms of employment, and that covid inly hurt the poor EVERYWHERE ON EARTH.
like do you even have a brain you tucking moron
>Someone has a better argument than me? I'll type in caps and swear.
Make a better argument Black person
> you're being sarcastic/you're a moron.
Neither. Well maybe a little sarcastic.
Look some people in places like Barcelona and Dubrovnik get angry at tourists, so you can always make that argument.
So discarding that, let's consider then if people live in a country in trouble do they specifically dislike tourists. In my experience...No. Of course that's a limited sample size but i can only speak to my experice. I visited Venezuela during the peak of the issues there - people welcomed me and we keen to tell me about their life. I visited Lebanon just after the factory explosion, people would come up to me as an obvious foreigner to talk to me about life there and what was going on.
I've been to numerous places a 'little' off the major tourist trail and i've yet to have someone say to me "how dare you come here while we're suffering"....it's always much more a sense of thanks for coming, talk about us when you get home.
Could they have been lying...i guess. but i dont think so.
>Its never the poor that make money off of foreign tourism
fair point, but i try to stay with local people, use local businesses, eat in small places. Does some tyrant make some cash out of the airport, a big hotel, a nationalised bus chain... sure. But if I only visited countries where i fully agreed with the government not only would i have no where to visit, but id have no where to call home.
tl;dr - everyone has to make a choice. for me id rather stand close to those struggling so they know at least someone is interested that stay away and pontificate on line.
>I visited Lebanon just after the factory explosion,
Yes that was the same as a government doing airstrikes on the civilian population.
>Yes that was the same as a government doing airstrikes on the civilian population.
a lot of people there thought that it ws deliberate so they could re'do the dock area, some thought it was the israeli's, others it was just incompetence.
I obviously don't know, I guess we'll never really know but it was nice to hear peoples experiences first hand
(ftr i didnt 'just go' because of the explosion, we were due to go and so continued with our plans)
You sound moronic
Went there pre-COVID and it was my favorite country in SEA. Cheapest and most unmarred by tourism or globalism. Wouldn’t go there now though.
they don't allow foreigners crossing through the land border with Thailand
not a great time to visit.
But you may not get another chance, your call.
The junta controls almost all of the tourism industry, so I wouldn't worry too much about them. If they didn't want you they wouldn't have restarted evisas, I haven't checked recently but I doubt there are any hastles for foreign tourists.
You can fly into Yangon or Mandalay, yangon has very modern parts so can make a softer landing. US dollars aren't used widely.
Myanmar's capitol city is administrative just like Australia or turkeys- nothing worth doing in the capitol, hotels are wierd, wouldn't recommend.
The country is full of no- go zones, my advice is that each zone is listed for very different reasons. Some areas the junta doesn't want you in, but locals will welcome you to. Some areas are narco trafficking zones and you'll be sent back at gunpoint or kidnapped. There are also religeous areas where non budhists aren't welcome but you'll struggle to find one unless you're looking. Drugs are treated very seriously because they fund terrorism, heroin and meth are rampant in some areas of the major cities and entire rural counties.
But it's like... frick around and find out, if you're just doing normal shit you'll never see any of that.
Bagan is great, still fairly well preserved and probably no tourists there. Pin-o-lywin/maymio is a nice cool stop outside Mandalay.
I worked in Yangon on a development project back in 2021. It was pretty fricked up, but not ridiculously so. You'll be left alone as a foreigner, but you do need to listen to your hotel staff about where is safe to go. You shouldn't have any trouble going to Bagan. (I wish I could have while I was there, but we were literally shuttled directly to and from work and I could only slip out a few times for shopping.) The situation has changed a lot in the last two years but I haven't kept up with it enough to give any useful advice. The one thing I'd recommend is bringing USD in pristine condition. They should be new bills without any marks or tears on them. Keep them in pages of a book, even. Use local currency exchangers, don't use banks or hotels or you'll get worse rates (you want black market rates, but that means everyone who isn't official). When you change a 50 or 100 bill, if it's in pristine condition you can negotiate to get 20% more than whatever rate they initially offered.
Old bills are still accepted - it's not like the hassle you can get with them in Cambodia - but pristine money will make you welcome everywhere, get you better prices, etc. For example, when I was shopping for big ticket, I started negotiating, then told him I'd pay in US cash to get his price lower, and when he wouldn't budge on a number I showed him my new bills and bam, it was a done deal.
Oh come on, there are a bunch of non moronic money changers in yangon I used to take broke tourists to them all the time, there's one in the expat area sanshuan, there's one on that intersection near the new mall, the overpass at the corner of the big park... uh.
You can still make cash withdrawals in kyat at the ATMs in the center of Yangon with visa right? They said there was an embargo but I don't think there actually was.
You can also change on the thai side but the rates are probaby awful and I'm unsure if land borders are open or not
When I was there in late summer 2021, there were approximately 5 ATMs (I think 3-4 were random) that would get a small amount of money filled every morning. People would line up all night at various ATMs in the hope of withdrawing money. Most could not so people used debit and bank transfers when possible. Cash was scarce and it was king, especially USD.
I was on a Signal group for Yangon expats and it had a lot of good information (roadblocks, locations of bombings, best money changers, etc). But I got removed due to inactivity a couple of months after I left. To join, OP could post Yangon Expats facebook group saying they are moving there for work and someone might invite them.
To reiterate, I don't know what the situation is like now 2 years later, but I'd bring USD if I was going back.
What kind of project?
Anyway, I was there in 2017, and everyone seemed so optimistic about the future of the country, sad what has happened.
Infrastructure project. It was a fine line between good for the government and good for the people. The Myanmar embassy in my home country didn't recognize the putsch government and they wouldn't issue me a visa, so my employer flew me to Thailand and I got a visa from the embassy there.
The locals I met (not very many that I spoke with) were very stressed and shocked about what was happening, though this was also during covid when about 1% of the population had vaccinations, so all that was going on too.
Are you an engineer? Work in construction? At the moment I'm in construction management and want to work in places like Myanmar etc.
No, I don't work with my hands. I applied for a contract position at an NGO and nobody was more surprised than me when I got it. They essentially place an entire working organization somewhere, so they need all types of people, right down to admin assistants, IT helpdesk, and whatnot. The majority of the people on the project were engineers and trades workers. My advice is to look for NGOs and just apply for any open positions and highlight your experience and skills.
Good thread anon, I was thinking of going there solo sometime soon.
I was there in late 2019 for two weeks, travelling alone.
Absolutely amazing place, didn't enjoy the food much though.
It was great to visit a place not overrun by tourism. Bagan is amazing, I guess in 15 years it would be another Chichén Itzá.
Everyone was so friendly, when I see the things the fricking military junta are doing I think about some people I met on the way. I hope they are fine.
>Everyone was so friendly, when I see the things the fricking military junta are doing I think about some people I met on the way. I hope they are fine.
Me too anon. Me too.
>didn't enjoy the food much though.
Did you start to find it annoying when they brought 15 dishes out when you just wanted a simple dinner.
I have to agree somewhat, but I had some of the best Indian food of my life in Yangon.