• I was actually very surprised by just how built up it was. The main thing is that there are almost no western brands to speak of. Coca Cola is some weird rip off (Panda Kola or something?) and a packet of local cigarettes was 80 cents but Marlboros were about $5 and almost certainly fake. There are motorbikes everywhere but they're all Chinese rip offs. The hotels we stayed in had air conditioning and flat screen TVs but again all the brands were weird Chinese poo poo. We went to a temple on the top of a cliff; running up the side of the cliff was a tower about 5 stories high which we were told was the way in. I groaned and said "I hope there's an escalator in there!" and everyone laughed at the complete implausibility of this. Unbelievably there was.
  
• The street food is garbage, and that's compared to Cambodia. There are beer gardens everywhere which do food, it varied from "acceptable" to "actually quite good" to "how can they charge me $3 for a loving samosa". They don't drink as much as Thais (who in turn don't drink anywhere near as much as Cambodians) so the beer gardens are busy but very chill. Beer ran at about $1/glass for Myanmar Beer (the best one) or 40 cents for this other type which was godawful. Prices for spirits are through the roof by SE Asian standards.
  
• The cultural differences are, how shall I put this, "unique". Apparently in Burmese culture it is considered impolite to assume anyone wants anything and even more impolite to ask for anything. This makes hospitality a hilarious farce as waiters desperately avoid eye contact whilst you wave your hands at them like some kind of deranged maniac. People do a strange kissing thing to get waiters attention which you'll feel very self conscious about but it works so whatever.
  
• Internet is a hilarious joke. The internet cafes are officially censored but this is so lax now that you're highly unlikely to notice (I got onto the BBC website just fine). Next to each computer there will be a little sign telling you how to log in through a proxy so you can avoid the censorship entirely, heh. It's sub-56k so you won't be doing much surfing. Apparently Ragoon is much better though, but you'll pay accordingly.
  
• There are actually holes in the pavement so keep your eyes open, although the pavements in the busy areas will be alright (ish). I don't mean little potholes either, you stick your leg in one of these things without noticing and you're breaking an ankle.
  
• The only issue with using water for washing is that it may or may not be hot and how you have adjusted the tap will have absolutely no influence on this whatsoever.
  
• People tend to speak a few words of English particularly anyone involved in transport. Mototaxis hang around in areas with a tiny sign saying TAXI hanging somewhere (this may be stuck behind a tree for no apparent reason). I don't think I got offered a single one on the street in a week in Burma, but they did offer when I walked past them. For longer journeys the locals jump in a pick up truck which you can do too but you'll pay double the local rate and they look pretty dangerous. I really wanted to go on one but my friend wouldn't let me and we had to go 50 miles by taxi, grr. Taxis are very much more Cambodian style (a clapped out Toyota Corolla with no fan) than Thai (a big pink Subaru Impreza with wifi). We hired one for $15 for 4 hours but unlike Cambodian ones he didn't let me smoke
  
• Minibuses between towns were quite good and actually more or less on time. Book through a guesthouse or hotel though, every travel agent we went to was quite clearly in the wrong job. One weird thing about long distance transport is there will always be a Burmese man or woman sitting in the passenger seat; I assumed this was some sort of government minder to stop us pesky foreigners seeing places they don't want us to see which I thought was awesome. Unfortunately it turns out they're just the "spotter" for the driver. Because Burma was a British colony they used to drive on the left but the Junta decided they didn't want to be British so they told everyone to drive on the right instead... but all the cars were right hand drive. Because of the sanctions any imported cars were smuggled in and cost a fortune, but nobody wanted a left hand drive car because then they'd have to learn to drive it so all the imported cars were right hand drive as well. Even the Burmese car manufacturer - owned by the Junta - couldn't be bothered to train their workers in building left hand drives so they just kept building right hand drives. So now everybody drives on the right in a right hand drive car and has to employ someone to drive around with them so they don't die. Seriously.
  
• The towns and cities are incredibly safe for foreigners mainly because the penalty for assaulting one is literally "disappear". How you feel about the moral implications of that is up to you but it does keep crime down!
  
• Ride the railway, seriously. Centuries of exploitation and genocide by the British Empire are completely nullified by the railways we built all over the place.
  
• Nobody will talk politics with you for obvious reasons, although I did run into a small (maybe 50 people) democracy demonstration. The police were just standing around chewing khat. In Cambodia they just open fire and this is _allegedly a democracy!
  

cent0r fucked around with this message at 08:04 on Aug 23, 2014

raton fucked around with this message at 15:15 on Aug 23, 2014

Tolkien minority fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Aug 23, 2014

ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 12:21 on Aug 24, 2014

Pirate Radar fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Aug 24, 2014