TheImmigrant posted:

That's really sad - I'm a cat freak, and spent almost an entire day at that monastery in 2003.

Sounds like I wouldn't even recognize the country now. I got there the day after Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested in Mogok in mid-2003. I flew in with the English-language newspaper from Bangkok, which carried news of the arrest on its front page. For the next month in the country, most of the people had no idea she'd been arrested. There were no cell phones, no Internet, no ATMs. I carried my entire month's budget in US dollars, changing them to insanely cheap black-market kyat as necessary, after bribing the airport customs lady to avoid having to buy worthless Foreign Exchange Certificates.

What are expenses like now? I was eating and drinking well on a backpacker budget of $20-25 per day.