Notes: Flights within Myanmar

·        Booking flights and comparing fares from outside Myanmar is not a simple process. Air Bagan are the only airline with an online booking system. Their online flight schedule doesn’t always match the days that flights actually run, so there can be a bit of trial and error in finding an available flight.
It’s difficult to find schedules and prices for the other airlines from outside Myanmar, and their airfares are often much cheaper than Air Bagan's. Flights with Air Mandalay, KBZ, Yangon Airlines and Asian Wings need to be booked direct with the airline (email, call or walk into an office), or through a travel agent.

·        Be aware that your flight time, or even your airline may change. Keep an eye on your emails or call your travel agent or airline directly the day before. I booked four internal flights with Air Bagan and only flew with them once. My three other flights ended up being with Asian Wings and Yangon Airways. Two of my flight times changed too.

·        When you check in, you’ll be given an airline sticker to wear on your shirt. A visible sticker can help staff get you on the right flight, as boarding announcements can be difficult to understand.

·        At Yangon Airport there’s a staff member who walks around holding up a placard for the flight that’s boarding. He/she will call out the airline, destination and flight number.

·        Seating may be “free” meaning first in best dressed, so if you want to sit with your group, be ready for the boarding call and placard guy/girl. My Asian Wings and Yangon Airways flights had free seating, Air Bagan had assigned seating.

·        Flight paths often include two stops (ie. Heho-Mandalay-Yangon). Make sure you get off at the right airport.

·        All three airlines I flew with provided refresher towels, lollies (sweets/candies) on short flights and a light meal on longer flights.

·        Planes can be small (only 11 rows), and the overhead lockers are… you guessed it… also small! Take as little on board as you can. If you’ve only got carry-on luggage, take something like your bag of toiletries out of your main bag – this worked a treat for me.

·        Many airports are also small, with a basic gate lounge and 1-2 simple cafés or shops selling nibbles. Arrival areas in these airports don’t have a luggage carousel; staff will bring your bags into a waiting area and you will have to hand over your baggage tickets (stapled to your boarding pass at check in) to get your luggage back.



Luggage waiting area in Nyaung U airport.

 

 

Arriving in Myanmar

 



Arriving in Yangon International airport, I was excited. While I'd been told a bit about Myanmar, much about it was a mystery to me. I quickly found that reality see-sawed either side of my expectations, and was forced to abandon all preconceptions and give way to discovery and learning (as any traveller should). 

 

My first stop within the airport was the visas on arrival desk. I already had a valid 28 day visa, but I was staying for 32 days and wanted to find out about the two week extension I'd been told about in Kuala Lumpur. The visa office in KL had signs indicating an extension was available and I was told by a staff member that I could apply for it in Yangon. Here in Yangon, however, I was told that the 2 week extension is only for business visas. I was casually told that I could just pay an overstay fee at the airport when I was leaving.

After going through immigration, I was surprised to be standing in a room lined with ATMs and money changers. I was with my partner, who travelled Myanmar in 2012 and had believed that back then there were almost no ATMs in the country. It looked like times had changed. MasterCard advertisements sat on the walls above almost al of the exits and I started to wonder whether our efforts to get perfectly crisp, flat, unmarked US dollar bills in KL was necessary.

Moving through the airport, my attention was drawn to the local men’s attire. They wore long longyis (sarongs), mostly in dark colours with a fine checkered pattern.  I’d seen men in longyis in India before, though I hadn’t seen them teamed with business shirts and flip flops. It’s an interesting combo.
Many women wore thanaka (a paste made from tree bark and water) painted across their cheeks, a somewhat primal choice of cosmetics in this day and age.

We were flying through to Sittwe and had a layover, during which I took a gamble and searched for a free wifi network. I connected to the free REDLINK_WIFI_YIAP network. After about six attempts, I managed to post on Instagram, but booking my flight from Heho back to Yangon online was impossible; the connection dropped out too frequently for me to complete the booking.

 

Yangon's domestic terminal is a beautiful old building with carved timber pillars and balustrades. The baggage scales are analogue and the check in desks are little stalls with fake flowers and vines strung along them – very sweet.

When we checked in with Air Bagan for our flight to Sittwe, I was surprised yet again – this time by my boarding pass. Two years before my boyfriend had been issued hand-written carbon paper boarding passes. While Air Bagan have upgraded to printed cardboard boarding passes with stamps on them, the stamps only detailed our flight number, our destination and the date. A sticker with a seat number had been added, but the gate, boarding time and flight times were left off. I found it funny that they had advertising on the back of their tickets, but on the front they' were missing many of the details a Westerner would consider necessary information.  

Boarding announcements were made in the gate lounge, though distorted and in Burmese. To back up the announcements visually, a man with a placard bearing the destination and flight number made laps of the area. We waited for the placard man to do his thing for flight W9309 and once he did, we boarded our plane.

Intrigued by what I'd discovered within a few hours in the airport terminals, I was eager to explore and find out more about Myanmar.