Great dinner tonight....

Love this country.....

Had dinner last night with the coach of the Myanmar National Football team, who is a good friend of our partner out here.

Tonight, the Head of the Myanmar FA, one of his best friends.....Blatter and Platini came up in conversation - obviously.

Great people, great food, great hospitality.

What's the country like? Did you get much time to see 'normal' people? Just trying to plan another holiday in the Far East again since we've been invited to a wedding in Sri Lanka and Malaysia in the summer.

TBF....I really didn't have time off to go exploring further afield than Yangon.

Our partner company out there is owned by a guy who is 'very' well connected at all levels....so he took us out every night to different restaurants and shown us around Yangon, the Ragoon river etc.

However, the plan is for us to set up a training centre there in the next few months once we get approval from the Government...so I could be out there for the foreseeable future.

People are lovely...spoke to loads of people on the flight home who had been on holiday and they loved it.

Waiting to see when it all gets signed, then taking my family out there for a week or so....our partner has said he'll fly us to Ngapali beach for a few days....looks unbelievable. Mynanmar was in the Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago saying their beaches are far superior to the islands of Thailand now, cheaper and don't have the tourists that Phuket, Koh Samui etc have.

It's peanuts to stay and eat there. 15 courses for 6 people...$25...with drinks!

Looks like I'll be back there the week after I get back from BTS for 2 weeks....but still not enough time to go visiting.....the hills to the North are supposed to be incredible.

Definitely a place to visit in the next few years before tourism explodes - now the new Government come into power on 1st Feb.

"Lot's of bang for your buck" so they say.

I think Malaysia was kind if like that 10-15 years ago when there were fewer tourists. Now, with tourism flourishing, too many people are trying to scam you.

Well, except for taxi drivers asking "do you need a taxi"...never witnessed that in the 2 x I've been there.

It's mainly a Buddhist country, so people are very, very friendly and as I can gather, crime is very low. I'm sure it has it's own issues, but I didn't ever feel unsafe there. They even have Tourist Police and a Tourist Police Station in the centre of Yangon....it's mainly American's and Brits from what I've seen, but more couples and older, experienced travellers.

Definitely see it before it becomes another Thailand/Bangkok which it will do in another 10 years with all the investment arriving in the country. The prices are so cheap...do it now.

Our driver, for the whole day/night. apparently cost $20....and he was in a nice car and at your beckon call wherever you are....fresh bottles of water in the car as well.

The average daily wage is $3.

We hired a taxi to take us from KL to Malacca for the day and that cost us less than £80 which isn't bad really since he drove for about 5 hours and stayed with us all day long.

I'll definitely put it on the to do list.

If the family comes out over the next couple of months...I'll definitely let you know the 'to-do's'.

My next stop!!

Ngapali Beach!!

sorry...got carried away there!!

I'l leave the missus at home then  :p  hehe

you said that Moon...I couldn't possibly comment.

Looks absolutely great out there blue...well it's a damn sight better than being over here at the minute anyway

I'm off to Spain golfing next Thurs, can't come soon enough

my kids are too young for that sort of thing yet...  (

Not that far from us here in Perth. We were in Phuket Nov / Dec but as you say is getting far too commercial now. The place you put up the pics of looks fabulous. Was there much to do or would there be much to do as it can't be too touristy at the moment. where do you fly into?