Visiting Myanmar, Sunrise in Bagan, Myanmar

Best travel tips for visiting Myanmar

October 23, 2020

Visiting Myanmar is one of those special places that you will fall in love with. Now when you first visit Myanmar, it may be a bit of a culture shock and things may not work the way you thought, but press on, as it is worth it.

To help you have an amazing time while travelling in Myanmar, I want you to learn from my struggles and eventual wins that lead me to calling this country one of my favourite places I’ve been. I spent a month visiting Myanmar and exploring different areas of this country but there are still so many places that I didn’t see. Myanmar is definitely on my “to return to” list so I can explore it more.

MONEY

The first thing you need to know when visiting Myanmar is the currency. The Burmese Kyat is a closed currency, which means you cannot purchase or sell it outside of Myanmar, so you will not be able to have any local currency on you until you get to Myanmar. There is very little difference exchanging money at the airport vs. in town, so get it at the airport.

You have two options to getting money in Myanmar:

Bring US dollars with you to exchange. Now, you can’t bring just any old US dollars with you, these need to be crisp, pristine dollar bills, no wrinkles or raggedy ones. They will simply not accept these and will only exchange the bills they deem worthy. I had very few dollars they accepted.
Using ATM’s. There are no big international banks here, so you could have trouble getting money out. At the airport they have rows of ATM’s and you will find bank machines around each city, so it is not hard to find one. The hard part is finding one that you can get money out of. I tried 4 different banks machines until one worked for me. At each machine I also tried the two different bank cards and the two different credit cards I take with me and most of the machines still didn’t work.

One thing I highly recommend you do is once you find a machine that will work for your card, take a photo of the machine so you know which one to look for throughout your trip, because you will forget.

Be persistent, even when the beads of sweat appear on your forehead as you stress that you may not be able to get any money out and not sure how you’ll pay for this trip, something will work. I was beginning to stress trying to get money out of the ATM’s, but in the end staying calm and continuing to try different machines worked.

Remember if you have any currency left at the end of your trip, make sure you exchange it back to USD before you leave, or else you will be stuck with it until you meet someone who is travelling there who you can sell it to, or until you go back yourself.

FOOD

The food in Myanmar is unlike anything you have tried before. Being a bit of a picky eater, I was worried about what I was going to eat, but to my surprise trying all these new things led me to discovering a dish that has become my most loved and talked about on my travels.

Check out my article on street food vs restaurant food.

If the food looks suspicious, or if it is not cooked in front of you, or you don’t see a lot of people eating where you want to, you may want to head somewhere else and not eat what these places are serving. It is best to be on the more cautious side of things when visiting Myanmar.

Now that we got that out of the way, once you tuck into the different food while visiting Myanmar your tummy will be so happy. Enter the Tea Leaf Salad. This salad has become my most talked about dish I have eaten on my travels. You can only get it in the Shan States in Myanmar, so when you are there, eat it every day!

There is nothing I can compare it to, as it doesn’t taste like anything else I’ve had. It is it made with fermented tea leafs, fried legumes such as butter beans or yellow split peas, as well as toasted sesame seeds, fried garlic, roasted peanuts, dried shrimp, chili, sliced tomatoes, shredded cabbage and oil, are added to the pickled tea leaves. Then fresh lime juice or fish sauce is added to season. It doesn’t look super appetizing when it comes out, but OMG, it is delicious.

Another thing that I discovered from one of my trekking guides was the Peanut Candy. You can find these in bags in local markets and are very inexpensive. You can get a good bag of them for 1000 kyat (which is about $0.80 USD). They taste like little bites of the Butterfinger, or Crunchy chocolate bars except without the chocolate and with a candy coating instead. Definitely look for these and pick up a few bags, they are super addicting.

I always recommend going into grocery stores no matter what country you are in and it is no different when visiting Myanmar. Some of their grocery stores have these amazing little bakeries inside where they sell freshly made food, both sweet and savoury and they are super super yummy.

Even if you are nervous about eating here you will always be able to find something you can eat. You can also find “western’ food and it is also delicious. You’ll find it mostly in the bigger cities or tourist areas but when you need a break and want something familiar you can find it. I had good burgers and amazing wood fired pizza in Bagan, you’ll find KFC’s in the major cities Yangon and Mandalay, and you can also find simple sandwiches and french fries in most places too.

Myanmar is a wonderful place and it is not filled with loads of tourists so enjoy it now before it becomes so commercialized. The people are some of the most friendly I’ve met and are just as curious about us as we are of them, so talk to them…not all of them will speak English, but when they do it is time well spent.

MONEY

Share your thoughts Cancel reply