Small Group Journeys
Highlights
Tour Details
Itinerary
Day 1: Arrival in Yangon
You land at Yangon and your guide takes you into town, forty-five minutes or so. The rest of the day is free. The first thing most people notice is that foreign cards do not work here and that the internet is slow and patchy. Your leader hands out the week’s plan over a drink before dinner and explains how cash works, which is worth ten minutes of your attention.
Day 2: One day in Yangon
Mostly on foot. The colonial grid downtown runs from the Strand up to Sule Pagoda, which took minor cracking in the 2025 earthquake and remains open while inspections continue. We look into Bogyoke Aung San market, built in 1926 and still trading in jade, gems and longyi, and finish at Shwedagon in the last hour of light. Dinner together in a tea house of the kind Yangon does best.
Day 3: Flight to Bagan
The morning flight to Nyaung U takes about eighty minutes. Bagan opens out as a dry plain of brick — over two thousand surviving temples and stupas raised between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, when this was the seat of the first Burmese kingdom. We start with Shwezigon, gilded and busy with pilgrims, whose smaller outer stupas collapsed in March 2025, then Htilominlo. Sunset from a viewing mound.
Day 4: A full day among the temples
By car and on foot, with a long break through the middle of the day when the plain is at its hottest. Ananda, the best preserved of the great temples, with four standing Buddhas set at right angles; Dhammayangyi, unfinished, enormous and never satisfactorily explained; Sulamani for the murals. In the afternoon a lacquerware workshop in New Bagan, where a bowl passes through a dozen coats over several months.
Day 5: On to Inle Lake
We fly to Heho. Depending on the day this runs direct or routes through Mandalay, and the connection sets our departure time — your leader confirms it the evening before. From Heho it is an hour by road down to Nyaungshwe at the head of the lake. We take the first boat out in the late afternoon, when the light is low and the fishermen are working the shallows.
Day 6: The lake day
Up the shallow creek to Indein and its hillside of small ruined stupas, a few restored, most left as they fell. Then Phaung Daw Oo, the lake’s main shrine; a silk and lotus-fibre weaving workshop at In Phaw Khone; and the floating gardens, rafts of matted weed staked with bamboo where the Intha grow tomatoes. Several floating buildings are still under repair after the earthquake. Farewell dinner in Nyaungshwe.
Day 7: Departure
What´s included
- 6 nights in 3–4 star hotels or similar
- Daily breakfast and 3 dinners
- Three domestic flights: Yangon–Nyaung U, Nyaung U–Heho and Heho–Yangon
- Bagan archaeological zone fee and Inle Lake zone fee
- A private long boat for the Inle Lake days
- Transport in air-conditioned vehicles
- English-speaking tour leader throughout, plus local guides at each stop
- Arrival and departure transfers, and a Yangon day room if your departure is late
- Bottled water throughout, and all tipping for drivers, boatmen and guides
Excluded
- International flights into and out of Yangon
- Myanmar eVisa, applied for online before you travel
- Travel insurance, which is a condition of joining the group
- Lunches and the meals not listed above
- Sunrise balloon flight over Bagan, available October to April and bookable through us
- Drinks, laundry and other personal expenses
Other journeys you may like
