When I told my family & friends that I will be travelling to Yangon, Myanmar in December 2018, the first question that most of them asked was, WHY?
Honestly, I don't have an answer to that question. Because my intention was to pay my colleagues a visit in their home country. Also, we have a few ex-colleagues who retired and I thought that it would be nice to visit & catch up with them. That's all.
However, that's not the end because we also need to plan for our trips there since my colleagues can't be with me ALL the time.
Before we decide to visit Myanmar, I didn't even know about a city named Bagan. Yangon was the only city that I know for Myanmar. Our initial intention was to visit our retired colleagues who resides in Yangon now, as well as paying our current colleagues a visit in their home country. Our intention was simple and little did I expect it to turn into such an amazing experience!
Since we were travelling as 2 girls only, our colleagues were concerned about our safety. So they actually looked for acquaintances who run travel business to arrange for the tour for us and their suggestion was to visit Bagan because it's one of the most famous tourist location.
Usually, I will do some research and surveys in different travel fairs and read some online blogs to decide on either signing up for a tour package, signing up for day tours, or travel by myself.
However, due to the short amount of time for planning and both my colleague and myself were busy with our work. We allowed our colleagues to give us suggestions and travel with what they have found for us. Although I was doubtful and was concerned about the price, I went ahead and confirmed since it will be a peak season travelling in Myanmar and it's their winter time, which was a perfect timing for their locals to travel there too!
And I have to say, maybe it was just an average tour for others, but I guess perhaps when I went for the tour without much expectation helped elevating my experience in Bagan!
The tour guide, Naing was really helpful and meets all our needs and wants (reasonable ones) and he will do the extra things needed to make us enjoy the tour.
By the way, he said that hes starting his own business and our tour with him will be the last tour for the company that he's working with. Then I thought that it'll be nice if there are people who support him when he's starting and I felt that by writing a blogpost, this is something that I can do to show my appreciation.
So if you're planning on a trip to Myanmar, do contact him via this email, naingmyanmar48@gmail.com.
Here's his photo,
p/s: Because he doesn't know how I wanted my photo to be, so I'll usually take a photo of him and then tell him the take the same one. But... I'll let you judge yourself if there are similar.
Despite the photography skills, I'll definitely recommend his service because I'm sure about one thing, that he will try his best to make sure that you're trip with him is comfortable and worth the visit and he doesn't mind to go extra miles to fulfill your needs & wants!
I feel that some seasoned tour guides will do the bare minimal/the required things and will not care about you but just to complete their task just like completing a checklist, I think I know how to differentiate after travelling for a few times with a tour guide. Otherwise, maybe when they can get commission, they'll do it and show you extra hospitality.
To be honest, I was hesitating and doubtful if it's worth it because it's expensive for a third world country initially. And yes, I'm speaking from living in a third world country myself.
But I will revel the cost of the trip where we were quoted a 3D2N tour for 285 USD.
In my mind, I was thinking "are you kidding me?" My 5D4N trip to Bangkok doesn't cost that much after including all the food expenses, flight ticket and hotel. But this alone costs me 285USD without food included and staying in a 2 star hotel. With the experience of temple hopping in Chiang Mai, I was thinking if I want to do something similar again.
However, my colleague from Myanmar was telling me that this is the standard price and when I go online, yes, some tour companies do show similar price range.
Thus, for my safety, I've decided to go on with the plan.
Fortunately or unfortunately, because I was travelling with a Muslim colleague, so she doesn't take any photos with the templs and I'm privilege to have all the attention of the tour guide, and the driver. haha...
They were very accommodating to help me to take all the 38 photos although I did compromise on many of my photos too...because I feel bad to ask them to keep taking photos...
Last but not least, I didn't regret this trip at all because even in my dream, I dreamt about the sunset after I'm back from Bagan!!!!! OMG!!!!
Words can't describe how I felt.
It was really a once in a lifetime experience that one cannot simply forgot.
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