Job Discussion Forums

[mandi100]

Hi,

I'm about to start work in Yangon, Myanmar in March for 2 months. If anyone can give me any info about bars, clubs, parks, good cafes (vegetarian), fitness places, yoga classes, taekwondo, swimming, or generally cool places to hang out that would be great. I've done a search on the web but any further info of peoples own personal experiences would be sound. Also, I'm gonna have some spare time in the afternoons and weekends so would like to find out about any volunteer work i could do (teaching, office, research, care-work). I used idealist.com but only found one Yangon based contact up to now.

Muchos thank yous,

Mandi

[Kent F. Kruhoeffer]

Hello Mandi:

You may have already found these, but just in case:

http://www.shambles.net/ (Shambles in SE Asia / a great resource if you click around a little)

http://www.yangonow.com/eng/index.html (Yangonow.com / seems to be up-to-date)

http://www.myanmar-tourism.com/ (Myanmar Tourism Portal / general info & maps)

http://visit-mekong.com/myanmar/index.htm (Visit Mekong / general tourist info)

http://talesofasia.com/ (Tales of Asia / good regional info & an active forum)

http://www.myanmar.com/ (The Golden Land of Myanmar / news & info)

Also worth mentioning: there are a few people who post on the Thailand forum who
have volunteered in Myanmar. You might want to post your questions there as well?

[Mike L.]

I went to Yangon in December last year.

I'm not sure you'll be able to enjoy things like Yoga classes. Myanmar is a poor isolated country. The capital a colection of rundown colonial buildings.

There's certainly an expant community, embassey and NGO staff, and some social events centered around hotels but there's not much happening in Yangon.

I doubt there are any clubs.

As for cafes well the whole country is a cafe. The people seem to favor tea to work so at all hours of the day you'll find them in one of the numerous cafes all over the place. These places are not fancy but offer cheap trea, coffe and other drinks. I especially liked the pasteries.

And boy are they cheap! I had a coffee, several spring rools and a bottle of water to go for 400 khat or about 40 cents US.

The downtown is surrounded by a green belt and I I enjoyed some sort of garden/courtyard type bars went to but there isn't much of a night life in Yangon.

You should certainly travel upcountry to Bagan and or Mandalay or wherever.

Whatever happens I'm sure you'll enjoy your stay in Myanamar. The people are great!

BTW what type of work are you doing in Myanmar??

[Tiger Beer]