Le Planteur Restaurant, Yangon

Fine Alsace Wine

We’ve been in Burma for two weeks. While we’ve had some excellent local food in Mandalay and Mrauk U, after two weeks there are some things we yearn for: a fine wine, the perfect baguette, rich dark chocolate. So here we are in Yangon. A good friend from Bangkok recommended Le Planteur and a couple we met in Mrauk U from Singapore also sang its praises. While the prices for the prix fix menu are rather dear, US$68 or $78, we decided to have a decadent lunch there. My experience all over the world has been that superb restaurants are often a (relative) bargain at lunch time. We were not disappointed.

In addition to the regular prix fix menus, Le Planteur also offers a vegetarian selection for US$44 and a Business lunch for a mere US$25. We found a wonderful Alsace Riesling, dry and delicate, to complement our seafood meal.

Amuse Bouche

Jumbo prawns appetizer

Delicious grouper in truffle sauce

We opted for the three course Business lunch. The food was perfectly prepared. In addition to the three courses, there was a group of three appetizers served as we perused the menu, then an amuse bouche, followed by our three chosen courses.

The third course is a selection from the dessert cart, and they encourage you to choose three or four items to sample. The servings are small, just right for a sampler. And after that, the chef brought us Swiss chocolates… the perfect end to a wonderful meal.

Dessert!

Swiss chocolates

Our compliments to the chef!

Contact information:
Le Planteur Restaurant
No. 22B KayarAye Pagoda Road, Yangon
Telephone: 541 997

http://www.leplanteur.net

If have reservations for dinner, they can pick you up in one of these beautiful antique cars, gratis.

Complimentary antique taxis

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Chao Praya River with no boat traffic after the flooding

We arrived in Bangkok late last night after what seemed like even longer flights than usual, even though they were the same. We’re both unhappy that United still hasn’t retrofitted all of their 777s business class with the full lay down seats and that since they have begun the retrofit project, we’re not longer getting 747s between Seattle and Narita. All of those have been completed. Luck of the draw, I guess. Hopefully next year! Sleeping through those flights would make a world of difference.

When we got here, after walking forever to the immigration stations, we got through very quickly and our AAC limo driver was there to greet us. As we drove to the Royal Orchid Sheraton, we saw dozens (hundreds, really) of cars along the side of the expressway, parked there by people to protect their cars from the recent flooding. Right now, the city center of Bangkok remains dry. Our driver said his home town of Ayuttahya got terrible flooding (3 meters) and his mother went to a temple to eat and sleep. He said they were without food and water for a week and people were sleeping out on the sidewalks. I sure everyone is glad to have the worst past them, I hope that rebuilding goes well for most people.

Last night on the plane, in the Bangkok Post, I read an article about 5 monks who started a protest in Mandalay demanding the release of all political prisoners. We’ll be there the day after tomorrow. We would all love to see Burma restored to democracy. Kathie and I are both looking forward to seeing any changes since the last time we were there 2 years ago.

Today is shopping in Bangkok day. I’ll go pick out a new pair of glasses and we agreed to buy an MP5 player for Min thu in Bagan. We should be able to do both of those things in Siam Paragon. After breakfast in the Towers, we’ll get the Sheraton boat to the sky train and buy a pass to give us enough rides for today and then the 4 days when we get back here after our travels in Burma. That’s when I’ll pick up my new glasses!

And now, as I look behind me through the window from my room on the 27th floor, I see it’s gotten light out and I see a single foot ferry boat crossing the Chao Phraya River next to the hotel. The river looks a little higher than normal, but that may not even be so. It doesn’t look like we’ll have any trouble at all getting from here to the sky train later this morning. It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day here in Bangkok.

Update: As it turned out, the Sheraton boat was not running, in fact, other than the foot ferries crossing the river there was no river traffic at all. The picture at the top of this post shows a very unusual scene, indeed. Normally, the river is teeming with traffic, especially the regular river taxis going both ways and plenty of barges carrying goods.

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In the city, the bank-run exchanges have recently had the best rates, about 10 kyat per dollar more than the black market rates. So far, such bank-run exchanges only exist in Yangon. There have been long lines of locals trying to exchange dollars for kyat. Recent exchange rates have been around 800 kyat to the dollar. Typically, exchanges set their rates twice a day.

These bank-run exchanges will exchange not only dollars, but also Euros and Singapore dollars. 
 However, this has not eliminated the need for crisp, unmarked US dollars. You still need US dollars to pay for hotels, flights, and admission fees.

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We also used our agent to book at boat for us between Sittwe and Mrauk U. There is a public (government) boat that runs several days a week, but is not practical if you have a schedule to keep. There are a number of different kinds of boats one can take – a speedboat that is both very loud and rather dangerous (like other speedboats on rivers in SE Asia), tiny uncovered boats, and fancier, covered boats. Because we are staying at the Princess, we decided to splurge on the Princess boat.

On our first trip to Burma, we found that the agent could get us better prices for Balloons over Bagan.

Of course, travel agents can also arrange guides for you. We opt not to do that, as we seldom use guides, and when we do we’d rather hire one on the spot after we’ve had a chance to interact a bit.

Also on our first trip to Burma we arrived in Yangon on a national holiday, so Scott’s Market, the recommended place to exchange money was closed. Our agent changed money for us at a rate equal to that available at Scott’s Market.

Because we are heading to Mandalay soon after we land in Yangon from Bangkok, we may ask the agent to exchange money for us when they meet us at the airport to give us our tickets and vouchers and to get paid.

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Once Burma opens up, it will change rapidly. Indeed, the release of ASSK this year seems to have spurred an uptick in tourism. In making my travel arrangements for November, I found that I couldn’t always get the hotels I wanted because they were full… and that was in May!

I started with an outline of where we wanted to go.

First on our list was a visit to Mrauk U, a concentration of Buddhist temples near the border with Bangladesh. These temples are from a different era than the Bagan temples, but like Bagan, this was once a capital of a kingdon.

Second on our list was the Ancient cities area outside of Mandalay. I also wanted to visit Pyin U Lwin, where there is a botanical garden as well as remnants of an old British hill station.

Third, we wanted to stop and visit our friend MinThu, who had been our horsecart driver and guide in Bagan.

And last, we wanted some time in Yangon.

With this outline, I contacted our travel agent, Zaw, at Santa Maria Travel in Yangon.

One of the problems with planning a trip is that the airlines don’t publish accurate schedules. The schedules change seasonally, and the airlines feel free to make last minute changes as well. The best you can do is to use an agent in Yangon who knows what the past patterns have been and to cross your fingers.

While we thought it made sense to go to Mrauk U first, Zaw advised me to put it at the end. Getting to and from Mrauk U is complicated. You have to fly to Sittwe, and from there it is a long (4-6 hours) boat ride to Mrauk U. If there is a flight in the morning, you can make the trip in a day. If not, you must spend a night in SIttwe. Likewise, on the return, you hope for an afternoon flight to be available so you don’t “waste” a day in Sittwe. But you can only catch a flight to Sittwe from Yangon, so we would have to schedule a day in Yangon before we fly to Sittwe.

Ultimately, we re-ordered our itinerary, flying to Mandalay the day we arrive, then to Bagan, then a day in Yangon before going on to Mrauk U. When we return from SIttwe, we’ll have two days in Yangon. We wanted one more day in Yangon at the end, but our hotel was not available for another night.

So while our itinerary required a number of compromises, we now have a plan that should run smoothly as long as the flights

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Burma has more deaths from malaria than any other Asian country. That’s a pretty shocking statistic for such a small country. One of the reasons for this is that medical care in Myanmar is quite poor. In addition, the treatment of choice for malaria, an artemisinin drug, is both manufactured in China and is counterfeited in China. Approximately one-third of the malaria treatment drugs sold in Burma are counterfeit.

If you’ve been to SE Asia, you are no doubt aware of fakes. The Hanoi airport is famous for it’s “Scotch” that reads “Made in Scotchland.” So the way people discern fakes is typically to examine the packaging. The best packaging must be the real thing, right? It turns out not to be true when we are discussing the malarial treatment drug, artemisinin. The drug is manufactured in China and the packaging photo looks grainy and is often printed slightly out of register, making it blurry. The counterfeiters, also working in China make better looking packaging for the counterfeit drug. To make matters worse, the counterfeit drug actually contains some artemisinin, just not an adequate dose to fully treat malaria. As a result, strains of malaria resistant to artemisinin are developing in Burma as well as along the Thai/Cambodian border.

At the very least, you want to do what you can to prevent mosquito bites while in Burma. The mosquito that spreads malaria is most active at dawn and at dusk. But the mosquito that spreads dengue is active throughout the day. The mosquito that spreads dengue is prevalent in urban areas, while the mosquito that spreads malaria is most prevalent in rural areas.

So take plenty of your preferred mosquito repellant along. If you choose to take malaria prophylaxis, there are two effective alternatives: Malarone and doxycycline. We take Malarone, as we have often used it and have no side effects from it. We also like that you only have to take it for a week after leaving the malarial risk area, while doxycycline must be taken for a month after leaving the malarial risk area. Discuss your options with a travel medicine professional.

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I received an email from a friend today asking about travel to Burma, as a colleague of his thought he wanted to set up a business meeting there. The email made me realize how few people know much about Burma.

Here is what I told him:

Yes, we were in Burma in Nov, 2009. Fascinating country. So fascinating, in fact, that we are going back there this November. I think it will be very difficult for your colleague to hold a meeting there this December.

1. All of Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand have economic sanctions against Burma. About the only major country that does not have economic sanctions against them is China.

2. Because of the economic sanctions, one cannot use credit cards within Burma. A few high-end hotels will take credit cards (by running them through Thailand, Singapore or Hong Kong) but will add an 8-20% surcharge for this. To pay for things, you have to hand-carry US dollars into the country (crisp, unblemished or they will be rejected). Some travel agents in Yangon have overseas bank accounts set up and you can send a foreign wire transfer to them for a deposit. But – you cannot tell the bank that the deposit is going to Burma or they cannot legally send it.

3. Burma has suddenly (with the recent release of ASSK) become a popular spot for more adventuresome travelers. While the tourism numbers are still very low, their infrastructure is stretched as far as it can go for this high season (Nov, Dec, Jan). We had difficulty getting the hotels we wanted for November when we were making reservations in May, and I hear from other travelers and from my agent in Yangon that the high end hotels are all basically full for this high season.

4. Visas: Burma has no visa on arrival. You must get a visa in advance. If there is any hint that a person is affiliated with the news media (for instance) the visa will be denied.

5. Internet access: High-end hotels have internet access, often wi-fi, though it is very slow. The problem is that the government blocks access to email accounts. Between the two of us, we probably have half a dozen email accounts with different providers. The only account we were able to access was a gmail account because the locals have devised a work-around to avoid the government blockade. Even with a personal VPN we were not able to get to our accounts. So none of the attendees would be able to access their work email while in Burma. The government changes its blockades as people devise new work-arounds (e.g., the use of proxy servers) so when we go back this time, we don’t know if we’ll be able to access a gmail account or not. In any case, one should just assume you will not be able to access email.

6. Satellite phones are illegal in Burma and may be confiscated.

There are lots of oddities in traveling to Burma. You pay for hotels, flights, admission fees is US dollars. You pay for purchases, taxis, food, etc in the local currency, kyat (pronounced “chat”). The official exchange rate is about 8 kyat to the dollar. Foreign aid, money to NGOs. etc comes in at this exchange rate. The actual exchange rate is currently about 700 kyat to the dollar. As a traveler, you exchange money on the “black market” (jewelry stores, hotels, etc). Indeed, if you ask to exchange money at the airport exchange counter, they will tell you not to exchange money there. And it is illegal for a foreigner to exchange money at a bank.

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Planning a trip to Burma isn’t like planning for a trip to any place else. All of the conveniences that I have come to rely on to book international travel – buying plane tickets online, reserving and paying for hotels online, etc are not possible in Burma. It reminds me in some ways of some of my first international trips when I had to go to the bank and purchase a foreign bank draft to mail to a hotel to hold a room. ATMs were not yet readily available, and we had to take cash and travelers checks to exchange for local currency. We paid for everything we could – hotels, meals, on credit cards.

When I was planning my first trip to Burma, I went about it in my usual way. I bought a guidebook (only the Lonely Planet has a relatively current guidebook) and read everything else I could find on Burma. I decided on a realistic itinerary for my first trip. I decided on hotels, knew what fights I needed, then tried to figure out how to book them.

I scoured the internet for ways to book the hotels I wanted. Since one cannot use credit cards in Burma – though some hotels will accept credit cards with a premium of 5%-20% – my goal was to book as many hotels as I could visa the web, paying in advance via credit card. Just one of the three hotels I wanted could be booked through a booking site in Thailand and I could pay in advance via credit card. The others I could book via the web or via email, but could not prepay, despite my best efforts. So I would have to carry in the cash to pay for them.

Flights were worse. There was no way to book them on the web… indeed, there was no way to get accurate flight times at that time (2009). I contacted a travel agent in Bangkok I have used in the past for intra-Asia tickets, but even Eddie could not get me intra-Burma tickets. A friend gave me another travel agent contact in Thailand – no luck there either.

Finally, I took the advice of some fellow travelers and contacted a travel agency on Yangon. Amazing! They could tell me the flight times, the prices, and book my flights for me. I was surprised to find that there were few choices in terms of flights times, and few flights were non-stop. Airlines run circular flights, so you almost always have a stop somewhere between where you got on and where you want to get off. I would carry the cash to pay for my flights to Burma and pay the agent on arrival. I discovered that the agency could make reservations for Balloons Over Bagan for me and give me a discount. By that time, I was beginning to understand that unlike other places in the world, travel agents in Burma could get hotel rooms for less than you could get them even through discount booking sites.

We had a marvelous trip to Burma. You can read my full trip report here:

My Fodors Burma Report

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Sikkim exceeded our expectations. It’s a beautiful country, and the people are justly proud of its natural beauty. They are looking to position themselves as an eco-tourism destination. Unlike the rest of India, you don’t see trash by the side of the roads. All of my reading about the history of Sikkim enhanced my visit there. The Royal Guesthouse in Gangtok is filled with photos of the royal family. I felt like I was visiting the ancestral home of an old friend.

If I had it to do over again I’d add in more time in Gangtok. I would have visited the orchid garden and wandered the downtown area more. I might even have added a day to Pelling, as it is such a beautiful, idyllic setting.

I’d skip Darjeeling, not only because of our bad experience at Glenburn, but also because I found Darjeeling to be an unattractive town after spending time in Sikkim. While the setting and buildings of Glenburn were lovely, the problems there were such that I wouldn’t return.

I’d add another day to Kolkata and another Calcutta Walks tour. The Oberoi Grand was lovely and the location is perfect. Calcutta Walks was able to give us an experience of Calcutta that would have otherwise been impossible in such a short time.

You can read the full report on the Fodors community site here.

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So it is time to buy those tickets. I went to the Jet Airways web site and input the flight information. This required a multi-city itinerary, as we need to fly from Bangkok to Kolkata, change planes and fly onto Bagdogra where ground transport will take us to Gangtok. Ten days later, we fly from Bagdogra to Kolkata, and three days later. We fly from Kolkata back to Bangkok.

I found the Jet Airways website easy to navigate. I always wonder whether I will be able to buy intra-Asia tickets online, as sometimes there are issues with credit cards. I do have a back-up plan if my credit card is not accepted, I have a travel agent in Bangkok who I have used for purchasing tickets when needed. But this time, it all went smoothly, I booked and purchased our tickets, and the electronic ticket was delivered to my email in pdf format. Jet Airways requires a printed copy of the e-ticket to enter the airport.

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