Myanmar and Me: Traveling With the California Native

We appreciate it when our guests share their stories with us and allow us to post them on our blog for everyone to enjoy.

Earlier this month, Nancy King and Richard Keltner, from San Francisco, traveled with us on our 11-day Myanmar (Burma) Explorer Trip. Here are Nancy’s reflections on the trip and a few of her beautiful photos:

Dear Lee,

We loved it! It was an incredibly well organized trip from our arrival in Yangon to when we left 11 days later.

We had four guides and they could not have been more accommodating. They were educated, spoke excellent English and we had such good connection I found myself crying one time at parting (and we had no guide more than 2 -1/2 days). It is strange now in thinking I asked you about tipping because we wanted to give each a huge tip and did! And drivers couldn’t have been better as well, pulling over when I wanted a photo.

The resort you put us in on Inle Lake was fabulous. I even had our boat man take us to the Princess Hotel, which is where my sister had stayed. I wanted to check out the gift shop. To my delight, our motor boat was stopped on the entry to the Hotel and a [leg rower] jumped in our boat to quietly do his one-leg rowing the entire inlet to the hotel. I did not like the Princess Hotel nearly as well as Inle Resort [where we stayed].

Yangon was very hot and humid in January but all the other cities were quite comfortable. Plus the car was always air conditioned as were the places we stayed. We were upgraded to a suite at the Trader’s Hotel and that was especially nice with the full window view of the city.

The food was outstanding! Our guide ate with us and we let him order [for us] every time. Each guide handled it so smoothly.

We loved having the guide and driver all to ourselves. I like the opportunity to really build a relationship among us.

The excellent guides are important, as we spoke with others who had guides through someone else. They were such a strong part of our trip with our connections with them.

I’m deeply into our trip and reliving it as I process my photos and edit them and get them ready to put in my 71st photo album of our life.

Sincerely,

Nancy King

Oxcart in Myanmar
Oxcarts drive alongside the highways in Myanmar.
Myanmar Broom Vendor
In Myanmar, an entrepreneur sells brooms from his bicycle.
Myanmar Merchant
A merchant weighs produce in a marketplace in Myanmar. The white cream on her face, thanaka, is made from tree bark.
Hotel on Inle Lake
Farms, houses, temples and hotels are all located in the waters of Myanmar's Inle Lake.

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