Weekend Blitz

Just on the outskirts of Mandalay are not one but three former royal capitals (Sagain, Ava and Amarapura) and the typical tourist path explores all three small villages in one day. So, of course, we signed up for the tour. How can you miss seeing three royal capitals that are right under your nose?

In typical Jeffrey-and-McCown fashion, we had no idea what to expect when we first arrived (we’ve gotten into a habit of planning the cities and towns along our stop – for flying/training/busing purposes, but nothing to do in the city, so when we first arrive, it’s a bit like a deer-in-headlights syndrome). Several tour companies on TripAdvisor offer these [...]

Friends who had visited Myanmar before us had completely skipped Mandalay, but we wanted to take our time exploring as much of the country as we could, so we (somewhat hesitantly) added a few nights in Mandalay, Burma’s second largest city, to our itinerary.

View of Mandalay from the Hotel Yadanarbon’s rooftop

It’s only about 445 miles north of Yangon (but, in case you’re wondering, if you’re going roughly 25 mph on a train, that’ll take you about 16+ hours). When we arrived on the overnight train around 9am, completely and utterly exhausted, we found scores of people at the train station, all hounding us to [...]

Disclaimer: I can sometimes write with an air of sarcasm, so please do not be put off by this! This trip was a throughly fantastic experience and we are glad that we have the memories from this train ride.

After taking a trip to the Myanmar Railways Booking Office a few days prior to book our tickets, it was departure day and we caught a cab to the Yangon Central Railway. Due to the traffic, car travel is only marginally faster than walking and, if it weren’t for our bags and the excruciating heat, we would have used the latter option this day. We made it to the station around 4:15pm, about 45 mins prior to departure.

The train station, like most in the [...]

When faced with the decision on how to get around from city to city in Myanmar, the train seemed like a solid choice. On this trip, the only one like it in recent memory, we were doing our best to ditch the standard “Weekend Blitz” type of travel that we’ve come to embrace, feeling like we’re going at 110% all of the time and trying to cram 25 hours into every day. For this trip, we had time on our side and a greater desire to jump into the local culture and see how everyday life is lived for the Burmese.

So, intent on taking the train while in Myanmar, we settled on the Yangon-Mandalay route. The times were appropriate for taking it overnight which [...]

On yet another hazy day in Yangon, we headed up the road to the main train station (the same one that would carry us off days later on the overnight Yangon-Mandalay train) to board the Circle Train, taking us in a circle around Yangon’s “suburbs” and then back into the city.

Because most locals can’t afford apartments in the city proper, the vast majority lives in the suburbs but finds work inside the city. This Circle Train is the preferred method of transportation in and out of the city as traffic can get pretty brutal (and, of course, you have to own a car or motorbike). So, riding this Circle Train provides an unspoiled glimpse into local life away from the [...]

The gleaming, gilded pagoda is your first spectacular view of Yangon on arrival, dominating the city’s skyline and commanding your instant attention (especially at night time!). Up on a hill, this 2,600 year old Buddhist temple is a sight to behold, towering over Myanmar’s largest city and reminding you of ancient times while connecting you to a very real, present-day Yangon. The number one site in Yangon (and probably all of Myanmar) is known as the Crown of Burma and is the country’s most revered shrine, a sprawling temple that boasts eight hairs plucked from Buddha.

Although legend holds that the stupa is more than 2,600 years old, some historians believe it [...]

Korean Airlines Business Class Lounge Tokyo Narita International Airport Terminal 1, Gate 26 7:45am – 8:50pm

For our 1 night layover in Japan following our flight from Chicago to Tokyo on ANA, we stayed at the Radisson Narita that I booked using Orbucks that I earned from booking other flights and hotels over the past few months. The hotel was fine, but the shuttle service ran every 60-70 mins. For us, this meant we’d need to err on the side of caution and take the earlier shuttle the morning of our flight to Yangon, which resulted in a decent chunk of time at Narita.

I checked my Priority Pass app to see which of the Tokyo lounges participate and found that, of [...]

Our first international flight of our first journey felt like it might never arrive when we booked it a few months ago, but, like all things time related, it was here in a flash. Our first segment, from Chicago-ORD to Tokyo-TYO was merely a stopover on our way to Yangon, Myanmar-RGN. Because ANA has only 1 daily flight to Yangon (around 11am), there’s no international arrival from the US that would allow us to catch it.

As we headed to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, we were musing that this was actually both of our first west-bound trip across the Pacific Ocean. We have flown Hong Kong to Chicago and Tokyo to Newark before, but never the opposite direction. The best [...]

Our first two nights were scheduled in San Diego, but we landed at 8:45pm (11:45pm Eastern Time), and had to rent a car and get to our hotel. We crashed into bed and tried to rest up for our packed day ahead.

One of my best friends had plenty of wonderful things to say about her time at Coronado Island, just a quick 10 minute drive from downtown San Diego, so we chose to stay on the island rather than in the downtown area. Once we’d decided to stay on Coronado, I had to choose from the handful of hotels there. The famous Hotel del Coronado was a bit out of our price range at $400+/night, so we settled on the El Cordova Hotel just across the street. It is an old mansion [...]