Myanmar in 14 days: the river, Mount Popa and the south
Fourteen days is where Myanmar starts to make sense. The four main places take ten, and the extra four days buy the river day between Bagan and Mandalay, the country around Bagan that most itineraries drive past, the south towards Mon State, and, importantly, enough slack that a cancelled domestic f
- Duration
- 14 days
- Pace
- Moderate
- Hotel changes
- 6
- Best months
- Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb
- From
- $2,520 per person
Available on request and subject to conditions on the ground. We assess every Myanmar enquiry against the situation at the time and for your dates before we quote, and we decline regularly. Several regions are not available to us. Two legs of this route, Mount Popa and the south to Kyaiktiyo, have been intermittently accessible, and whether they are workable on your dates is a question we answer at the time rather than in advance.
Who it suits: travellers with a fortnight, second visits, and anyone who would rather have buffer than a tighter route.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive Yangon. Met and driven to the hotel. Evening at the Shwedagon Pagoda.
Day 2: Yangon. Downtown on foot with a guide, the circular railway, the markets, the reclining Buddha at Chaukhtatgyi. Street food in the evening.
Day 3: Yangon to Bago and Kyaiktiyo. East and north to Bago for the reclining Buddha and the Shwemawdaw Pagoda, then on towards Kyaiktiyo. The last stretch up to the Golden Rock is by open truck, which is an experience in itself. Night on the mountain, which is the only way to see the site in the evening and at dawn without the day crowds.
Day 4: Kyaiktiyo at dawn, back to Yangon. The rock at first light, when it is pilgrims rather than visitors. Down the mountain and the drive back, arriving late afternoon.
Day 5: Fly Yangon to Bagan. Afternoon among the temples, sunset from a viewing mound.
Day 6: Bagan. The main temples early, the lacquerware workshops in the middle of the day, the small tracks in the late afternoon on foot or by e-bike.
Day 7: Bagan, Mount Popa or the villages. Mount Popa, an extinct volcano with a monastery on a rock plug beside it, if it is accessible on your dates. If it is not, a day in the villages beyond the archaeological zone: toddy, palm sugar, peanut oil pressed with a bullock, and a village lunch. We tell you which before you travel.
Day 8: Bagan, a spare day. Deliberately unallocated. A third day among the temples, a boat, or nothing. On a fourteen-day route with four internal flights, one genuinely spare day is the difference between a trip that absorbs a cancellation and one that does not.
Day 9: Bagan to Mandalay by river. The day boat up the Irrawaddy, nine or ten hours, past sandbanks and villages and the occasional pagoda on a bluff. It is a long, slow, good day and it replaces a flight. We confirm the specific departure before we include it, because the service has been intermittent, and where it is not running we drive, which takes four to five hours over about 110 miles (180 km).
Day 10: Mandalay and the old capitals. The Mahamuni face-washing ceremony at four in the morning for those who want it. Sagaing’s monastery hills, Inwa by horse cart, and Amarapura’s U Bein bridge at dusk.
Day 11: Mandalay, Mingun and the craft workshops. A morning boat upriver to Mingun for the unfinished stupa and the bell. Afternoon in the gold leaf, stone carving and marionette workshops.
Day 12: Fly Mandalay to Heho, drive to Inle. Afternoon on the lake by boat.
Day 13: Inle Lake. A full boat day: Indein, the workshops, the rotating market if the cycle falls near you, and a Shan lunch in a village.
Day 14: Fly Heho to Yangon, connect home. With a long buffer, and a Yangon night added instead if the timings do not work.
What is included
Thirteen nights, all domestic flights with buffer, the Irrawaddy river day or the drive where the boat is not operating, private car and driver throughout, English-speaking local guides on the days that need one, the truck up to Kyaiktiyo and a night on the mountain, all boat days at Inle and Mingun, entry and zone fees, a full written cash briefing before departure, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant here, our Hanoi office and our partners in Yangon.
Why the spare day is in the itinerary
Domestic flying in Myanmar is less reliable than it was: fewer carriers, fewer routes, and short-notice changes. On a ten-day route a cancellation costs you a place. On this route it costs you the spare day and nothing else.
We would rather publish an itinerary with a day in it that has nothing scheduled and explain why, than sell you a tighter one and deal with the consequences on the ground.
Honest notes
Six hotel changes in fourteen days is the upper end of what we think is comfortable, and two of the moves, the mountain night at Kyaiktiyo and the river day, are the reason to take this route rather than the ten-day one.
The Kyaiktiyo accommodation is simple. There is nothing good on the mountain and there is no point pretending otherwise. It is one night and the dawn is worth it.
Mon State and the road south have been affected by conditions at various points. This is the leg we are most likely to remove from a proposal, and if we remove it we replace it with two more nights at Inle rather than with something worse.
The river day is long and there is nothing to do on the boat except watch the bank. Some people find that the best day of the trip and some find it nine hours. We ask which you are before we put it in.
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