Even though the streets were filled with English coming out of the airport, I’ve never felt so lost in a developed Asian country before. Trying to figure out where to eat (or what was even good) was confusing!
 
I now understand why so many of my friends’ parents wanted them to be literate—you wouldn’t be very independent in Taiwan without being able to read a few words. I actually discovered that my cousins learned simplified Chinese in Singapore and actually couldn’t figure out the traditional characters either. It made for some very interesting experiences. (Also, Singaporeans have a very different mandarin accent—must be from all those other dialects that get smushed together.)

Kind of a mashup of Vietnam and Hong Kong—it may not have been as clean as Singapore but it was a lot cheaper and had a lot more character overall. The history of the country is a little strange (well I mean, it’s hard to really say who was right or wrong when you consider what happened in the last century as both Japan and Chiang Kai Shek did do some good for the country). 

Overall most things were pretty tasty and cheap. I’m still biased towards my Singaporean roots, so not every Taiwanese-style dish I tried was my favorite. However their fried donut (yu-tiau) was probably the best I’ve ever had, Ding Tai Fung is definitely better in Taiwan, and the night markets are unlike anywhere else I’ve been. But don’t go looking for fishballs here-- those are better in Singapore.

Best place for traditional breakfast? You can't miss it (with the woks and the lines in the morning)-- it's directly across the street from a fruit vendor and just past the local wet market on the opposite side of the street. 

Jin Din Rou-- we came here because of Uncle Joe's recommendation as this place is supposedly better than Ding Tai Fung, The quality of all the dishes was amazing. 

Ding Tai Fung. Where consistently good xiao long bao can always be found. I swear it's better here than the branches in LA and Singapore. Taipei 101 has a decently large place but be prepared to wait!

Shaved ice is taken very seriously here! Ice Monster (this particular branch is within 2 blocks of Taipei 101) is really well known for its mango ice.

Raohe Night Market; This night market had more food than the other ones we had been to. Definitely worth going to for the fresh mochi, fried pancakes, and pan fried chicken. (There are also outfits for your lap dog....)

Shilin Night Market: Food, street performers, and clothes and stuff. Highly recommend the frog eggs drink and the torched beef here. Fried chicken was pretty decent, too.

Jiufen was a Japanese colony back in the day-- made to be the example colony to show the world that the Japanese were good powers to be under. Supposedly also the village/town that inspired Spirited Away. It did feel somewhat like the movie.....

There are tunnels but I didn't get to them. However I did find a waterfall a little ways on the hill past the restrooms....

Chicken restaurant. Have you ever seen gelatin like this on a chicken? Yum! Located on the main street in the old town sort of halfway up the hill.

Take the regional train up to Ruifen Station from the Taipei Main Station. Don't lose that ticket! (If the machine eats it let the attendant know.)  You'll then need to hop on a bus or take a cab.

Pretty popular to launch lanterns here. (We launched one but I definitely had to suppress my thoughts on ecosystem impact). Didn't seem like a whole lot to do and the stores seemed to repeat themselves. The waterfalls were about a 30 min walk out and no one really felt like walking to see the "Niagara Falls" of Taiwan.

Taipei 101 is probably the most well known building in Taipei itself. It was at one point the world's tallest building. The mass damper (that big sphere thing) is what absorbs the energy from the wind that hits the building. It is the largest damper sphere in the world. There are two observatory decks-- inside and outside, but frankly the inside one has a lot more to see-- I mean, there were tons of outdoor tracks and helicopter landing pads and things you could see from the inside deck! You can also watch the planes fly in and out of the nearby airport.

Tamsui is a small fishing town located at the end of the red line from Taipei. It seems mostly like a touristy spot for young families and couples-- and has a sort of Venice Beach/SF Fisherman's Wharf feel to it. There's a pretty famous bridge known as "Lover's Bridge" which is about a 45min ride by bus from the MRT station. Decently crowded on a Monday night.

Decent Italian food can be had if you walk from the MRT by the water past most of the shops.... 

A historic theater in the Taipei Ximending area-- I noticed it as we came out of the MRT to go to Ximending (which is a local night-life/young people area). Great history (most of it was in Chinese) and there are some local artists with their wares in the back. It was built when Taiwan was a Japanese colony-- originally as a market building, then a theater, and now a tourist attraction.

Yangmingshuwu (aka Zhongxing Guesthouse) was the summer residence for Chiang Kai-Shek in the mountains of Taipei.  Full of historical photographs of meetings with important people (mostly Western powers) and relics from the Chiang's life (like old outfits and a watercolor stand)-- it was a pretty grand place (which made me wonder about how lavish their life must have been). Beautiful grounds with secret tunnels, alcoves for hidden guards and machine guns-- this is like Taipei's version of Hearst Castle.

The easiest way to get here is probably by taxi-- and there are roughly 4 tours that run every day (probably best to call them before you go). It didn't seem like you were allowed to wander around the premises.

The National Palace Museum is probably most famous for it's cabbage and pork belly jade carvings. Unfortunately the cabbage has been relocated to the newly opened National Palace Museum to the south (but they have pictures of it up in case you wanted a closer look). Really intricate jade carvings, woodblock prints, furniture, sculptures, cauldrons, paintings, and jewelry are located here. Apparently only 1% of the collection is displayed at any one time. If you walk to the library (which is across from the main building and behind the food court area) there is a timeline that shows roughly when things were brought to Taiwan from China. Basically Chiang Kai Shek "stole" the artifacts from Beijing and brought them (mostly on the beds of pickup trucks) across rafts and into a vault that's been dug into the side of the mountain. Apparently Chiang not only stole the artifacts but also stole most of the gold, which is why Taiwan was a force to be reckoned with in the late 40s.

Easiest way to get here: MRT then take a cab. There is a bus system that runs but it's quite a distance from the station and cabs are cheap.

Sometimes you just don't appreciate what you have until you don't. I learned a lot about how infrastructure affects an area, and how the ordinary to these people seemed extraordinary to me. Didn't even realize I took so much for granted until I traveled through Vietnam and Myanmar for three weeks. New England's pot holes and bad Asian drivers in LA seem trivial after all the driving we saw and all the buses we rode. As sketchy as it seemed, street food vendors were quite clean, and no one got sick. Lots of half-finished buildings as folks would pour concrete while they had the money (particularly in Vietnam, where the concept of having a long-term plan was beyond them).  Although the Vietnam-American war had been over for many years, the Vietnamese have not quite gotten past its horrors. Myanmar suffered under the hands of the British and later, the Japanese. Both countries have people who have been through so much, and yet they were quite friendly (I would say even friendlier to white people than the Asian tourists).  I now truly appreciate that I grew up in America, not in war-ravaged third world countries.

Here are some of the things I appreciate a lot more:

Mandalay-- it's like the closest thing I've found to LA in all of southeast Asia.  It's probably the combination of multi-storied buildings with a distinct lack of energy/the feeling that most people don't live their lives on the street. Not sure if it was the fact that Yangon was my first city in Myanmar, but this 2nd largest city just doesn't have the same sort of energy. (Probably doesn't help that we got in on a public holiday-- the full moon of the beginning of Chinese lent.)  Everything is deceptively close on the map. City blocks here are huge! Be prepared to walk a lot.

I can't decide if it's this way because it's been occupied by both the British and the Japanese-- like perhaps it has a grid design because it survived some awful bombings (which is why the grand palace is nothing to look at now since the Allies razed it since it was a Japanese stronghold during WWII). 

So how much time do you need here? 

That totally depends on if you 1) find a good guide/english-speaking taxi driver, 2) What you're interested in, and 3) where you're located.

This city is expensive in terms of acommodation and transport. Hotels will pretty much only direct you to car taxis (not metered, and expensive in comparison to Vietnam-- 5000 kyat for 1-way trip of like 15 blocks). If your hotel has bikes, that's probably a better way to get around since the city is pretty flat and there are at least some traffic lights. Traffic overall was much better than Yangon (at least it flowed in rush hour).

Also, low season + random cyclone that we happened to get stuck in = not fun. Mandalay has 1 of 2 modes (confirmed this with a local): Dry and dusty, or wet and muddy. (I'm sure that's true for Bagan as well.) Some tour companies won't be able to run their usual tours when it pours. Initially had planned to go on the cycling tour of the old capitals surrounding Mandalay but it was too wet to do so! (Our guide who ran the foodie tour we had to take instead told us that the paths had a lot of mud and if you rode on the trails they typically took, you'd be up to your hips in water.)

Places of Frustration in Mandalay:
So... Diamond Plaza might be "the place to go to buy things in smaller quantities than at the Zecho/Zegyo market" but it's incredibly frustrating to get into. There seemed to be only one entrance in (the other entrance goes to a different part of the mall that is more or less deserted after 7:30pm and the floors above the 3rd floor were dark and shop-less), and it's an incredibly large space. I will say that the market in the basement had a good selection of Myanmar music, food, and random goods, like fuzzy flip flops. It was sort of a very compact Walmart.

Places to Eat in Mandalay:
MinGaLaBar Restaurant

Great food, wasn't concerned about sanitation (the food was kept in an enclosed space). Even though we sat in the downstairs non-airconditioned part, it was still quite pleasant. (Yes, air conditioning exists upstairs.) 

Roads. Roads! Roads. Bagan taught me that roads here are basically cow paths and mostly dirt and unsigned even when they're nicely written out on maps (although most free maps in Asia are shitty) (Highly recommend bringing in a good road map like what I got from Kinokuniya before you get here). 

The road to Mandalay was a nightmare. It was 18,000 kyat for 2 people to ride on the Pyi Awe Tay bus-- which meant you got a (presumably) nice coach seat on a half-sized bus. What we didn't know was that these buses also pick up locals on the way. In fact, there are seats attached to the side that fold out so that folks can sit in the center aisle. Those are the seats sold to the locals. There's more standing room by the door, so a lot more folks piled in over there. So while my pretty tall 6ft 2in friend had no leg room, it was a cramped and hot journey (we were pretty spoiled on the ride over on JJ's from Yangon to Bagan). Oh, and it was a super bumpy journey (friends on other buses told us that locals couldn't handle the ride either and got very carsick).

Stopped at random places on the way to Mandalay (one was a crappy bus depot and another was like a sort of restaurant across from a gas station). Was pretty hungry at this point (regretted my decision to not buy more Tim Tams when I had the chance) and tried some packaged foods that the lady was selling (obviously made earlier that day). There was a fried cracker made from chickpeas (mostly flavorless-- it was alright) and a fried doughnut with what looked like shredded old coconut (but it tasted odd-- though I saw the same stuff drying in Mandalay in the sun so maybe that's what coconut tastes like once fermented?).

Bagan: temples, temples, temples. The only time you don't see them is when there's stuff blocking your way, like trees or buildings. But otherwise, this is a flat area covered in remnants of an 11th-Century empire.

I now understand why no one travels overland between these countries. Even though roads are nicely marked on maps (including my beautiful map from Kinokuniya that has been a lifesaver) everything is dirt in the countryside, and has no road signs. That dirt turns into mud when it rains. We had the unfortunate luck (or fortunate, because it was a lot cooler than usual) of being in Myanmar just as the cyclone passed over our heads.

Mud. It wasn't quite as bad as when we were all in Phong Nha (for that I say if you really are a die-hard minimalist shoe wearer like me, then get a shoe that has real traction because sneakers with smooth soles (though I love my Lems shoes) really suck when it comes to mud). We weren't really able to ride bikes with all the mud and the rain (5000 kyat for a day) so we hired the hotel car (their taxi) to drive us around for the day (which if I recall, was about 30,000 kyat for the half day). Although we couldn't see much out the windows (thanks to the annoying shade-dot-logo things), it did mean that we could hunker down and hide in air conditioning (and get eaten by mosquitoes).  

We asked our waiter at Zfreeti Hotel (who had great English for only learning for one year in Yangon) about some recommendations for places to visit.  I will say that one of the temples he pointed out was phenomenal. In some sense we made the mistake of going there first (beautiful area, carved/built into the cliff, has underground tunnels that are sort of blocked by the sand but they do lead to the other major temples in the area) and it was so cool because we had the place all to ourselves.  Now that would probably be a pretty sweet archaeological dig to lead.

We visited the village that our friendly waiter pointed out (it's sort of behind the large cylindrical viewing tower)-- my friends said it wasn't quite as bad as the village they visited in Sapa, but there were a couple of things I found obnoxious. First off, no Burmese person up to that point had ever to my face told me, "I want to sell something to you." Additionally the tour was mostly a quick walk through the village, to the guide's house, and then to the various shops they had that sold goods they supposedly made, like handcrafted silver, carved horn utensils, and woven cotton bags.  I understand that these people would like to just live off of the money that tourists give them (and I understand that they are poor people) but asking one person in the group for a "money present" instead of assuming you'd tip or even just being happy you visited and bought some goods-- I thought that was a little unusually rude for the Burmese people. What my friends and I were hoping for was an authentic village where we could observe how they lived, maybe chat and talk or enjoy a cup of tea, not just be walked through and then told to buy things.  I guess maybe I set us up for that when an old lady smoking a cigar came out after me and I took a picture of her and she demanded money and I gave her some (and her daughter who was carrying her baby asked too). I had seen similar things happen in Vietnam but I guess I feel that although these people may need money for better living conditions, me giving money directly won't exactly impact or change their lifestyle for the better (for all I know I could have been giving the old lady money to buy more cigars). 

Food:
Be Kind to Animals / The Moon-- great tea, so-so food. Maybe I felt disappointed (after all it was rated #1 on Trip Advisor) or the fact that I'm a hard-core meat person, but nothing here felt really satisfying.

Weathervane-- Super Western with decent Burmese food. The first place I've eaten Tea Salad at (quite tasty with whatever crunchy/roasted bean they put inside). Their curry was also yummy (didn't burn like the Shan curries) and a lot thicker than what we had previously seen at most other Burmese places. If you want a burger (my friends said both burgers were good) and a selection of pretty decent desserts, and you're craving good western food, not a bad place to come.

Where to stay:
In general if you come during low season you can stay wherever you want. New Bagan (to me and my friends) didn't seem interesting (though the older folks we met who were easily in their 40s/50s liked it) and we preferred our accomodation in Nyaung Oo. Unless you really want to spend time learning about Lacquerware, or want to eat at a local tea house, I can't see why you would want to be in New Bagan.

Zfreeti: Not the best hotel ever (spotty wifi, kind of old rooms) but it does have a swimming pool, spa, nice E-bikes to rent, and all of their staff who might have to interact with customers speak decent English.

Crown Prince Hotel: Things I liked: Wifi (best I've had the whole trip), Good selection of TV channels (oddly the satellite/international news and stuff only kicked in at night), and great in-room air conditioning.
Things I didn't like: Restaurant (stuffy and slow food-- seemed like 1 guy took your orders and cooked in the back), and honestly I don't know how well these folks are doing because the manager came out and asked me to write a good review for them. As far as I could tell they didn't have any E-bikes to rent, and it felt a ways away from everything that was sort of "going on." 

Temples I thought were interesting:
Shwesandaw (sunrise/sunset temple--though you won't see those when it's rainy)
Ananda (one of the largest temples)
Upalithein Unesco mural one

Ok so my uncle was afraid that I wouldn't like Yangon, but I did. There was so much to be seen on the street, from fresh seafood I've never seen in my life to rickshaws and folks wrapped in longyis (Lohn-gees). Locals lived their lives on the street here way more than any other place I've been in Southeast Asia.

Compared to Hanoi the air was cleaner (perhaps due to the rain) and more people spoke English (and better English than most of the folks I talked to in Vietnam). The buildings were a little run-down, but there was a lot of colonial-era architecture that was still up, in addition to weird fusion buildings and old shop houses. 

I did go to visit the Shwedagon Pagoda which is comprised of many many temples and has buddhas and shrines to the different days of the week (you pray to the day of the week that you were born on), and has the largest bell in Myanmar (which the British attempted to steal but it capsized the ship and sank to the bottom of the river and had to be lifted out by a makeshift raft by the locals). Spectacular.
(Hint, if you want a good view head to the rooftop bar called Vista Bar)

Loved the street markets around 19th street-- on Maha Bandula and 19th there was food, and Anawratha Road and 19th had lots of recycled hardware and tools. Tried a bunch of foods and didn't get sick so I highly recommend you do the same if you go! Just be wary of uncooked (the ice cream/popsicle thing I had didn't give me any issues).

Around the Sule Pagoda, you can walk by the oddly decorated City Hall, and the old Court building. Unfortunately we didn't get to go down to the Strand hotel or walk Strand road to find the other old colonial buildings.  If I went back I'd do that and go on the circle train around the city.

Bogyoke (Bow-geok) Market: Pretty amazing place if you want to buy longyis, jade, cane balls, and fruit all in one stop.

Alibaba Amusement Center: Stumbled upon this entirely by accident-- it's the Yangon equivalent to Chuck-e-Cheese. No pictures allowed inside, though (for whatever reason) so I snapped a shot on the way out. Definitely seems like a good place to spend some time on a rainy day.  Located somewhere on 25th Street north of Maha Bandula.

We met up with our friends from Vietnam who stayed in Pickled Tea Hostel (we stayed at Royal 74 Hotel, which I lived in a windowless shoebox of a room and the provided breakfast was fairly greasy and only somewhat good). If I did go again I'd probably stay at a hostel instead (you meet people). We met a lot of good folks through our friends and it was a good few days in Yangon. Do note that there are calls to prayer early in the morning in these places, which was pretty noticeable by my friends at Pickled Tea.

Shan Yoe Yar -- clean, great service, and affordable. If you like spicy food, then you'll love Shan food. It was so good we ate there twice!

Thank goodness, or else that would have been one nightmare of a day.

It's pretty straightforward-- if you got an online visa, just proceed to the immigration desk with the forms given on the plane and you should just go through. There are plenty of banks and ATMs who will change money with you (the rate was 1 USD = 1240 Kyat (pronounced chot)). Yes the rate was somewhat better in the city (1 USD = 1242 Kyat) but in general it was a lot easier to change at the airport-- just make sure you bring fairly crisp large bills ($50 or $100). From there, you can just go to the taxi booth and reserve a taxi (though you may want to get a SIM card at the booths further down first). 

Do you need a SIM card? I thought so, but after getting one it wasn't very helpful-- even with 3G it was hard to find my location on my smartphone with Google maps. (Though it was only 1500 Kyat.) Sadly the 3G/2G connection I had was actually better than the wifi at the hotel I stayed in!