Our Golden Myanmar flight was eventually operated by the bigger, safer and obviously better airline, Myanmar National Airways and it was a brand, spanking new ATR72 - actually spacious (not words usually associated with these prop planes). We arranged with the airline to be within nipping distance to the door and the loo. Which was lucky. Eventually made it to the hotel about 9.30 pm on Friday. On a positive note, it’s the third comfortable bed we’ve had i...

So, Monday morning we ballooned, rest of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we did, for all intents and purposes, nothing at all. Well we did breakfast. And dinner. Saw a couple of sunsets down at the river bar. Went for a couple of swims. Brrrrr... 30+ degrees but the water is freezing. Left the compound exactly twice, once at night for a shuffle around one of Bagan’s 2200+ temples - this one being conveniently about 3 minutes walk down the road (right ha...

‘See the sun creep over the horizon in a blaze of crimson glory’ they said, ‘glide like a eagle on warm updrafts’ they said, ‘watch the morning mists furl and unfurl around the 2000+ stupas of ancient Bagan then touch down to chilled champagne’. They said it and they were right. Our first balloon ride was during our Queenstown honeymoon almost 14 years ago - and sadly, we became addicted. Ballooning over Bagan with Oriental Ballooning was to be our...

We booked our Asian adventure way back in August 2018 and even then we recall reading that the Irrawaddy river could be a bit low by February, being dry season and all. We only spent 1 day/2 nights in Mandalay and the day before our 12 hour river cruise was set to commence, we did reconfirm the trip with the company. (Reconfirmation is a big thing in Myanmar. If in doubt, email/phone or get someone to do it for you, but definitely reconfirm.) The company said ...

Whilst our flight from Chiang Mai to Mandalay, Myanmar wasn’t until the late afternoon, we spent the whole day preparing. Bangkok Airways markets itself as Asia’s Boutique Airline. At the point of packing we weren’t sure how accurate that could be, but we were much less than impressed with their ‘boutique’ travel allowance - 20kg checked and 5 kg in the cabin... total. That is, not a 7kg cabin bag and a sneaky 3-4 kg of ‘personal item’ - where we ...