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Myanmar (Burma) (Country Guide) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Robert Reid, Michael Grosberg
Publisher: Lonely Planet
Category: Book
List Price: $23.99
Buy Used: $10.00
You Save: $13.99 (58%)
New (33) Used (16) from $10.00
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 196107
Media: Paperback
Edition: 9th
Pages: 404
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1740596951
Dewey Decimal Number: 915
EAN: 9781740596954
ASIN: 1740596951
Publication Date: October 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Explore the vast, ancient ruins of Bagan, voyage up myriad waterways by riverboat, relax at a remote teahouse or sample fresh seafood beside white-sand beaches. Let this considered and responsible guide show you the adventure of a lifetime, while at the same time showing you how your travel experience best benefits the local people.
Should You Go? Weigh up the pros and cons of going to Myanmar by reading this special chapter.
Be Inspired - new highlights, itineraries and planning sections to help you plot your path.
Benefit The Locals by choosing private, locally owned hotels and eateries.
Make Your Own Way with detailed maps, including a full-color country map.
Connect With Culture - detailed History and Culture chapters provide insight into Myanmar's rich and complex heritage.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
A traveling companion you will most likely need... January 11, 2007
Pen
33 out of 34 found this review helpful
If you're going to Myanmar you will want a good guidebook, this one does the job more than adequately. While there are some parts that are out of date, prices a little inaccurate in some respects, and missing information regarding routes and transport means (they advise a trip from one town when the bus actually leaves the town before and only stops if in the next town it's not full), for the most part it's a decent guide book, and you'll want something like that if you're traveling around a good deal of the country.
With the politics it's your choice. As the other reviewer said, they make enough money trading with China and India, yours really is a drop in the bucket... that doesn't stop the government charging you 10 times the local price for many services though! The guidebook offers useful suggestions on minimizing giving money to government run services and I would suggest you spend local as much as possible. A trip to Myanmar is educational, enjoyable and I believe that most of the locals want you to come and they will welcome you with open arms. For the most part they really enjoy the opportunity to meet with and interact with foreigners.
The other thing is I would suggest not to be a Lonely Planet Tourist. By that I mean only eating and staying at LP recommended places and doing LP recommended excursions. You'll have a better time, I guarantee you. I can't count the number of times I asked someone where they were staying... 'I'm staying at the Royal' [or other name] which was No. 1 on the LP list of recommendations (and loaded with other tourists). Another time in Bagan, I walked down the street and there's nobody at any of the cafes... and about 100 backpackers at the only LP recommended restaurant! You're not necessarily going to get sick by eating somewhere else (you mostly have as much chance as an LP reviewed restaurant) and there are many, many, other fine restaurants and places to stay. Some of the LP places that were recommended as good were truly horrific and I found others not in the book for better prices and much higher standards, and still travelers go for the LP recommended place. Find and befriend a local and talk with them and ask them questions, you'll be glad you did. You'll meet more people, see things you wont see in the guide book and eat foods you would never have tried. A friend and I went bike riding the back streets of a small town and were invited into a wake... which was really a celebration and we sat down to talk with the locals and enjoyed some of the finest food I think of our entire trip.
I stayed at some amazing places, met some wonderful people in towns where there was no LP recommendation for guesthouses and in found in Yangon one of my favorite guest houses in South East Asia (also not in the book), the owners of both places really touching my heart with their generosity and spirit (they went out and bought food for me because I'm vegetarian among other things) one even gave me a gift which was a wooden game (they give it to all guests I think that stay a few nights) with a little card inside 'I hope that you can travel overseas and see a new country every year' - how's that for heart touching.
Some points to note that aren't really in this book. With currency, the guidebook makes some off the cuff type remark 'don't expect to change any worn or tattered notes'... and I thought I've traveled all over Asia, so I knew what that meant. WRONG. Myanmar has a standard unlike ANY place in Asia. You can watch in horror (I took mostly $US100 bills to get a better exchange rate) as they hold your bill up to the light and reject it for having.... a 1mm nic in the corner (I'm serious), and you take it somewhere else and they do the same. You cannot use credit cards there save a few hotels in Yangon (and you have to stay the night at $150US to do so) and travelers cheques also are accepted in few places, and at a 20% discount. Without exception, the travelers I came across were - shocked - at how picky locals were with notes, even the government run places and services (they too will reject them should there be ANY potential defect and ask you for another - LP says you can often palm them off in government run places and services, this is rarely true).
So that I make it absolutely clear (the guide book doesn't):
You must take BRAND NEW $US bills with no smudging or worn fold marks in the middle, no nicks or indents on the sides and absolutely no writing or pen marks on the notes if you want no problems. Higher valued notes get better exchange rates.
(With smudging, I'm talking a note a few years old that has been folded many times and in any other country you wouldn't give a second thought to using them - you simply wont believe how people look over your notes). I heard horror stories of people having a bank in Thailand stamp all their notes (and they were all rejected in Myanmar). Be careful when changing also on the black market where people offer you a substantially better rate (most of the time, they will cheat you by taking money back, short changing you or something like that - it's like some places in Bali, some changers offer you a better rate but then short change you and if you pick it up they then want to add a commission, i.e. you will NOT get the rate that's advertised under any circumstances, it's a bait) and NEVER change at the airport (50% discount to the market rate). If you have problems, ask your concierge if they're good, they'll probably know someone who can change it for you (I seriously was facing a prospect of going to a major hotel looking for an American departing the country to change my notes that I thought were perfect - and I've traveled extensively in developing Asia).
Traveling can be hard (there are long distances, mostly early starts (5am ish), and transport can be bumpy and in some cases dangerous on very old vehicles with drivers that have little regard for their own lives let alone that of others (I'm talking accelerating into corners and driving blind around them in old vehicles) - ask a good hotel and befriend the concierge, they know the routes and forms of transport that are most dangerous (some for instance have deadlines where they have to be there at a certain time to turn around with another load of passengers and there are often accidents).
Internet is also non-existant outside of the 2 major cities and is so slow in most places in Mandalay its hardly worth using (I'm talking sometimes 10-20 minutes for a page to load). Moreover, the government blocks access to Yahoo and Hotmail (not Gmail) although some internet places have software that connects to external servers and you can access hotmail and yahoo through them. Also, you need to check current information for instance to go to the top of the country as you need to apply for permits in Yangon and wait (up to two weeks) for authorisation to go there, something that may not be practical to arrange if you've already arrived.
A journey to Myanmar is rewarding and enjoyable. The people are wonderful the country is beautiful and the food is excellent, not to mention cheap. If you can, try help out, buy some books for a school or a Buddhist monastery. Or go to one of them and just speak English so that the students there can hear native speakers. They pretty much only have old issues of many magazines and books there (dictionaries that can be 30 years old) and what is gratifiying to see is that they really love to read and learn and are very keen to do so - but you have to be careful about bringing that stuff in.
You'll find the LP guide to Myanmar a very handy reference, I just advise against using it as a bible. If you only go to accommodation listed in the top few for each town you will often stay in mediocre places (some of whom increase their price after an LP listing), miss out on the some of the best food and sometimes trade off lame entertainment (eg. the Moustache Brothers who had a whole half page write up in the LP and I heard not one good review from travellers) at the expense of truly unforgettable experiences.
I hope you enjoy your trip to Myanmar as much as I did.
A very good book March 14, 2006
James G. Driscoll (Santa Clara, CA United States)
30 out of 33 found this review helpful
OK, ignoring all the strange hype and anti-hype over going to Myanmar (my in-laws live there), this is a good book. I purchased it as my sole guidebook. Although some of my local guides had a few words of disparagement for some of the restaurant recommendations (they said they were years out of date), it was otherwise a useful tool. If you are going to Burma, buy this book. Really, you'll find it handy.
As for supporting the regime with tourist dollars, don't be silly. They get all the support they need from China - they don't need your money. Staying home in a snit won't change a single thing that happens for the better. And it may make things worse.
Stop the moralizing - the people of Burma will thank you December 20, 2005
D. J. Nardi (NY, USA)
21 out of 32 found this review helpful
I have been to Burma several times and I know the people I have talked to appreciate my going and communicating their concerns to the world. I believe I can say, with all appropriate humility, that I have been involved with Burma far more than the other reviewers here and am even married to a relative of a member of parliament from the NLD, Aung San Suu Kyi's party.
Having said that, the decision on whether to travel or not is not all black and white. Yes, some of the money may go to the government, but much more will go toward helping the people and sustaining local economies. Only people who haven't been there can possibly believe that spending any money in the country is evil. I think many reasonable people in Burma, including prominent democracy activists I have met, are sick and tired of the ban. If you really care about Burma, help with the effort to get it on the UN Security Council agenda, but also visit so you can learn about the people, help their livelihoods, and give them hope.
By the way, the guidebook itself is pretty useful. I usually go to Burma with people that know the country, but when I've needed it, the maps have been accurate and most locations are as well.
Response to pepper "pepper". December 22, 2005
Naked Buck (The Netherlands)
4 out of 28 found this review helpful
Uhmmm... the name Buck Naked comes from the "Seinfeld" show. It is the artist name George would use if he were a porn actor...
Are you grimly serious with everything? Not a happy life, I imagine.
Of course slave labor isn't needed to improve infrastructure. I'm not saying I'm OK with that, it is a shame to humanity that it still takes place!
And of course the international community needs to take action, but not by depriving ordinary Burmese of their daily needs through a boycott. And certainly not by sending in Mad Man Bush's troops!
If you read carefully, I stated that ways of avoiding donating cash to the military include staying at independently owned guesthouses. Avoid luxury hotels, as they are probably owned by companies in cahoots with the military. Don't buy Total gas and don't breathe deeply when eating a really dry biscuit!
Small list of other places to avoid: North Korea, Belarus, most countries in Central Asia, half of South America and the state of Texas. And what about Graceland?
Myanmar? I'm still going. And I have raised the stakes to 5 stars.
Best Guide for Visiting Burma/Myanmar May 6, 2007
Maung Than Lwin (London, UK)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
There is no other guide which comes close to being as useful for visiting Burma, either as a first-time tourist or an veteran traveller. Its overall descriptions, information on transport, reviews of hotels etc are all generally reliable and up-to-date. The accounts of restarants in Rangoon however is probably somewhat dated, as the restaurant scene in Rangoon changes quickly and there are many new restaurants today (more than a year and half since publication) which are not mentioned.
I would recommend reading The River of Lost Footsteps by Thant Myint-U for an excellent and entertaining history of the country, either before going or during your trip. The LP Myanmar and The River of Lost Footsteps are the only two books you'll need.
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