Anyone been into Myanmar in the last couple of years? Been a dream of mine for years for the Unesco sites but the wait is killing me.
I know there is a lot of civil fighting in parts, but different countries are rating the "danger" levels differently. Would you travel the main spots (Bagan, Yangon, Mandalay, Inle, etc) in the current circumstances?
>I know there is a lot of civil fighting in parts, but different countries are rating the "danger" levels differently.
I haven’t been to Myanmar since before the coup, but I worked there for a while and keep in touch with people on the ground. It’s one of not many places where, sadly, I don’t think government warnings are exaggerated much.
While fighting is indeed scattered around, and primarily in relatively rural/remote areas, that means that there are roughly six very hot front lines currently in states of active warfare. And even in areas far from the fronts, infrastructure, supplies, communications, and transportation are frequently and unpredictably extremely fricked up. Plus there are somewhere between 1.5 and two million internally displaced people in the country (hard to get good estimates, but it’s a LOT of desperate people whose homes have been wrecked), most of whom are up in the hills, but others of whom are fleeing to cities if they can. There’s at least one refugee camp right in northern Yangon.
>Would you travel the main spots (Bagan, Yangon, Mandalay, Inle, etc) in the current circumstances?
I would under no circumstances travel to any of these places under current conditions, and I hope you won’t, either.
I think that realistically you could get into and away from at least some of them without serious risk to your personal safety. Forget Inle—Shan State is one of the hottest areas of fighting right now, and although it’s mostly in districts not too close to the lake, you can’t get there without getting in the way of soldiers or people trying to flee.
Central Mandalay is basically probably safe, but it’s heavily militarized and there’s a curfew. No guarantees about roads to get there and back, either. Bagan, too, is probably accessible without running into active clashes, but there was a shitload of flooding late last year and recovery work is ongoing.
And Yangon is safe enough, but it’s tense.
>wants to travel to a country with an active civil war (where the government might, realistically, lose)
are you restarted?
No. Junta just said men up to 35 are all registering for a draft this week.
Myanmar is an active "tanks and grenade drones" conflict area.
I would never go there now. I went in 2017. no one will be happy to see you.
>no one will be happy to see you.
Underrated comment, and one that bears thinking about.
I ranted about this a little bit in another thread, but I think it’s worth repeating. Tourists shouldn’t go to active war zones, period. Not because they might be in danger, although, duhh. More importantly, because it’s not ethical to be a net burden on people who are suffering. Every meal or bottle of water or liter of diesel or kilowatt of electricity a tourist consumes while in a crisis situation is being taken from a local who needs it more than he does. Every local who helps you out or takes care of you has more important things to worry about. God forbid that the worst happens and a tourist does get hurt—that’s a hospital bed that should have gone to someone who had no choice but to be in harm’s way, not to someone who brought himself there on purpose, for fun.
No tiny injection of tourist money into a distressed economy adequately covers these costs.
buy your tickets OP, you're good to go
You are a genuine moron if you go right now and aren't an agent of a government being dropped in to monitor the fighting.
I was thinking of including Myanmar as a funny meme trip, wanted to rip over to Yangon for a few days for my eventual Thailand visa run i'll have to do while i'm there.
Is this a mega moronic idea or will I probably be fine
>Is this a mega moronic idea or will I probably be fine
Yes, the “funny meme trip” is a mega moronic idea. What’s going on in Yangon (and beyond) is not at all funny. It’s terrifying and depressing for those who, unlike you, have no choice but to be there and can’t get out, while an evil government gets more aggressive and paranoid as it ponders possible futures that include a brutal bloody crackdown that will fuel further years or decades of simmering guerilla unrest, or its own brutal and bloody collapse at the hands of multiple disparate angry mobs.
You would also probably be fine, in practice.
>Unless your timing wound up being so bad that you found yourself there when embassies were being evacuated and people were getting shot down in the streets again, like they were two years ago, lol
lol the only people saying not to go are all obviously the same anon
No one will care as long as you stay away from the frontlines. Plenty of tourists in places with drone warfare like Ukraine and Russia have no problem.
Apply this to western governments visa vis immigrants who routinely rape, and maybe we can agree. Otherwise frick off
Yangong looks pretty safe to be honest.
i just read a thing about the curfew (there is a curfew between 12pm and 4am). The nightclubs in yangon have found an interesting way to continue operating- basically, once you enter the nightclub, they lock the doors, you can't leave until 4am. sounds like fun.
Nightclubs in hotels should be unaffected if you are staying in the same hotel right?
Smallbrain went there recently and had a great time. You'll basically have the whole country to yourself without any other annoying tourists. Literally it's the best time to visit.