Yangon arrival

Stage fright? I did not sleep well, so out of the hotel early and used a combination of the subway and public bus to get to the new airport. It is a 30 to 40 minutes taxi ride from the hotel, but my subway/bus journey took nearly two hours, so it is not worth the savings (95 Baht vs 350 Baht ; that is £1.25 vs £5.00).

Although I was all prepared to hate the new airport, departures are certainly a lot easier than the old one. There is a lot of space and check-in seems easy. Security concerns are the same as in the old one – no scanning through check-in, passport control, the entire shopping area .. it is only when you enter a wing of the building leading to actual gates that you encounter any security measures.

The airport is drab, unpainted concrete and steel which is painted grey ; the seats (grey) are steel and real bum crunchers. I think the idea is that they want you to shop , not sit (must have studied the techniques in Las Vegas). Smooth flight of just over an hour on Bangkok Airways. This boutique airline used to be one of my favourites but all indications are that they are taking advantage of their monopoly routes and putting their fares up disproportionately. I am looking for alternatives for future flights.

Yangon International is a small airport and seemed to be an efficient operation. Visas are required in advance, so none of the form filling I encountered in Laos or Cambodia. A taxi into the city was only $6 (seemed like 8 or 10 miles) ; the taxi very broken down, but we got to the Traders Hotel without incident. The driver pointed out a high rise building and said that it used to be a hotel but the military liked it so took it over for their own use. First indication that at least some people here are not afraid to speak out.