Myanmar
Check travel advice first. Much of the country is currently off limits
Population
55m people
Currency
Myanmar Kyat
Main Language
Burmese
best time to visit
Not currently advised in most areas – check government advice
Climate
Tropical monsoon, hot March-May, wet June-October, cooler November-February
Visa
E-visa available, but UK and most Western governments advise against all or all but essential travel
Country overview
The situation first: since the 2021 military coup and the ongoing armed conflict, the UK Foreign Office and most equivalent bodies advise against all travel to much of Myanmar and against all but essential travel to the rest. Conscription has been introduced, communications are restricted, and consular support is extremely limited. This page is reference rather than recommendation.
Myanmar in more settled times is one of the most extraordinary places in Asia. Bagan has over two thousand surviving temples and pagodas spread across a plain, built between the 11th and 13th centuries, and seeing them at dawn is a genuine rival to Angkor. Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon is gilded with real gold and is the religious heart of the country.
Inle Lake has fishermen who row standing with one leg wrapped round the oar, floating gardens and stilt villages. Yangon has the best-preserved colonial architecture in Southeast Asia largely because decades of isolation meant nobody knocked it down. Whether and when any of this becomes responsibly visitable again is a question for the future.
Annual events and festivals
- Thingyan, Water Festival (Apr) — Burmese New Year, and the biggest holiday of the year. Four days of water throwing.
- Thadingyut, Festival of Lights (Oct) — candles and lanterns marking the end of Buddhist Lent.
- Tazaungdaing (Nov) — hot air balloons launched at Taunggyi, some carrying fireworks. Spectacular and genuinely hazardous.
- Full Moon of Kason (May) — watering the sacred banyan tree at pagodas nationwide.
- Phaung Daw Oo, Inle Lake (Sep-Oct) — Buddha images carried around the lake by leg-rowed barge.
- Ananda Pagoda Festival, Bagan (Jan) — a large temple fair with ox carts and traders camping for weeks.
- Independence Day (4 Jan) — marks the end of British rule in 1948.
- Union Day (12 Feb) — commemorates the 1947 Panglong Agreement.
- Kyaiktiyo Golden Rock pilgrimage (Nov-Mar) — a gilded boulder balanced on a cliff edge, and a major pilgrimage site.
- Naga New Year (Jan) — a tribal festival in the far northwest, with traditional dress and dance.
Myanmar Travel Guides
Myanmar guides are coming soon.