Classic Myanmar: 10 days, Yangon, Bagan, Inle and Mandalay
Ten days along the central corridor is the standard first trip, and it works because the four places are genuinely different from each other: a large working city, a plain of brick temples, a lake in the hills, and the old royal capitals on the Irrawaddy.
- Duration
- 10 days
- Pace
- Moderate
- Hotel changes
- 4
- Best months
- Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb
- From
- $1,800 per person
Available on request and subject to conditions on the ground. This is the route we would run when the situation allows it. We assess each enquiry against the conditions at the time and for your specific dates before we quote, and we decline regularly. Several regions of Myanmar are not available to us and are not in this route.
Who it suits: first visits, travellers with nine to twelve days, and anyone coming through Bangkok who wants a second country that feels nothing like the first.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive Yangon. Met at the airport and driven to the hotel. Nothing scheduled. Late afternoon at the Shwedagon Pagoda, which is where every Myanmar trip should start and which is best in the last hour of light and the first hour of dark, when the platform fills with people who have come to sit rather than to look.
Day 2: Yangon. Downtown on foot with a guide: the colonial-era commercial blocks, the Sule Pagoda, the Indian and Chinese quarters, and Bogyoke Aung San Market. An hour on the circular railway, which is the cheapest and most useful way to see how the city actually lives. Afternoon at the reclining Buddha at Chaukhtatgyi. Street food in the evening.
Day 3: Fly Yangon to Bagan. A morning flight. Afternoon on the plain: two or three temples chosen for what they are rather than for their size, then sunset from one of the designated viewing mounds. Temple climbing has been prohibited since 2018 and the mounds work better than people expect.
Day 4: Bagan. A full day. Ananda and Dhammayangyi in the morning, before the heat. The lacquerware workshops, which are a real craft rather than a shop stop. The middle of the day indoors or at the hotel. Late afternoon out on the smaller tracks between the temples, on foot or by e-bike, which is when Bagan is at its best and emptiest.
Day 5: Bagan, and the river. A morning boat on the Irrawaddy, or a half day out to Mount Popa if it is accessible on your dates, which we confirm rather than assume. Otherwise a slower second day among the temples, which almost nobody regrets.
Day 6: Fly Bagan to Heho, drive to Inle Lake. A short flight and an hour on the road down to Nyaung Shwe. Afternoon on the water: the stilt villages, the floating gardens, and the fishermen who row standing on one leg, which is a working technique rather than a performance despite what the boats near the jetty suggest.
Day 7: Inle Lake. A full day by boat. Indein, on the western shore, where several hundred small stupas stand in various states of collapse on a hillside. The five-day rotating market if it falls near you, which we time the itinerary around. Shan food for lunch in a village rather than at the hotel.
Day 8: Fly Heho to Mandalay. Afternoon at Amarapura for the U Bein bridge, three quarters of a mile (1.2 km) of teak across a shallow lake, at dusk when the monks and the fishermen and the light are all doing the right thing.
Day 9: Mandalay and the old capitals. The Mahamuni Buddha at four in the morning for the face-washing ceremony, which is the single most affecting hour on this itinerary and which is entirely optional. Sagaing’s monastery hills in the morning, Inwa by horse cart in the afternoon, and Kuthodaw with its 729 stone slabs of scripture.
Day 10: Fly Mandalay to Yangon, connect home. We do not put a domestic flight and an international flight tight against each other, so this day is built with a long buffer, and where the timings do not work we add a night in Yangon rather than gamble.
What is included
Nine nights in the hotels we recommend, all domestic flights with buffer built in, private car and driver throughout, English-speaking local guides on the days that need one, all archaeological zone and entry fees, the Inle boat days with a boatman we use regularly, a full written cash briefing before departure, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant here, our Hanoi office and our partners in Yangon.
Honest notes
Four hotel changes and three domestic flights in ten days is the cost of this route. There is no way to see these four places in this time without them. If a flight is cancelled, and it happens, we have a plan for each leg before you travel.
The archaeological zone fees at Bagan and elsewhere go to the state. There is no way around that and we would rather say so than not mention it.
Bagan is hot. From March onwards the middle of the day is unusable and even in December the temples are exposed. Everything above is built around early mornings and late afternoons.
Balloon flights over Bagan operate in some dry seasons and not others, and within a season not every week. We will tell you the current position and we do not sell it as a certainty.
Related
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