Guest Posted January 12, 2016 Posted January 12, 2016 Mandalay Visa: e-visa Flight: DMK to Mandalay with Air Asia. Forex: There are several exchange booths in the airport, offering various rates for your USD which appear to be competitive with those in town. Your dollars need to be in immaculate condition for use in Burma. Think brand new notes, with no markings and no folds. That's a contrast with the local currency, which people seem to take no care over at all. I then took the Air Asia shuttle bus into Mandaly, which stopped about 300m up the road from my hotel, which was the 79 LivingHotel. As the hotel sends a taxi driver along to the bus, I didn't even have to walk that far. The trip into town took almost an hour. The hotel deserves some praise for having some cute staff in nice uniforms. Plus a rooftop bar. Massage GGG Location 21.981275, 96.093076 Has male masseurs. Not very professional, poor massage, including the happy ending. 13,000 Kyat. Masseur had one of the smallest appendages ever seen. No reason to come back. Paradise Spa 71st St 21.972334, 96.098557 Considerably more professional establishment clearly catering for men. Very good oil massage, with nudity & H.E. 10,000 Kyat. Think I tipped him 15,000. Returned the following day & received an even better massage off the same masseur, including an exceptional body to body massage. Think I tipped him 25,000. The Lime Spa 21.958806,96.101277 I didn't get to try this place, as I couldn't resist a return visit to the Paradise Spa. I would imagine they offer a better service than GGG. It certainly looks more professional than GGG. Gay Romeo No dates arranged. One lad did announce he was a money boy and offered his services for 30,000 kyat, however as he only seemed to log on every 2~3 days, it was not possible to arrange a meeting. Here are some photos of sights from in and around Mandalay. Possibly too much file compression prior to upload. Sorry. Quote
vinapu Posted January 13, 2016 Posted January 13, 2016 thank you , waiting for Bagan installment Quote
Moses Posted January 13, 2016 Posted January 13, 2016 Siamroads.com has cute "agent" in Bagan in case you will need any help http://siamroads.com/kaung-bagan-burma/ fedssocr 1 Quote
Guest Posted January 13, 2016 Posted January 13, 2016 Siamroads.com has cute "agent" in Bagan in case you will need any help Thanks for the advice. This is being posted after my trip, for various reasons, including: 1 Having more interesting things to do during the trip 2 Unreliable internet in Burma 3 Editing is much easier on a PC, but only my Android devices travel on the holiday these days. Quote
Guest Posted January 24, 2016 Posted January 24, 2016 Bagan The the bus ticket from Mandalay down to Bagan was $9. The trip was approx 5 hours, including about an hour picking people up form other hotels & a 20 minute stop. Quite a comfortable journey. The bus collected me from the hotel in Mandalay & included delivery direct to my hotel, after transfer to a pick up in Nyaung U. Your options for staying in Bagan are Old Bagan, New Bagan or Nyaung U. Old Bagan has some expensive resorts, which didn't suit my budget. I picked New Bagan, as it's closer to the temples & has some more reasonably price hotels. For a return trip, I would make exactly the same call, as New Bagan is surprisingly nice & has quite a few restaurants on the main drag, so it's easy enough to eat. I stayed at the Northern Breeze, which was quite pleasant even if their attempts to create a stylish bathroom were ruined by a lack of skill from whoever put it together. Even my first DIY bathroom was an order of magnitude better than that. At least it all worked & I would happily stay there again. Gay Activities: None I had quite a long Gay Romeo dialogue with one super cute lad in Old Bagan, who was very keen for me to visit his resort hotel to fuck him. I was keen to oblige, however, when it came to the ID question, his sister had apparently taken his passport. So that didn't happen. There were very few people on Gay Romeo or the other apps. The closest was actually working in the hotel, but he wasn't of much interest to me & that seemed to be mutual. The Temples. One of our fellow board members rated this as on a similar level to Angkor Wat. Before going, I was thinking it's going to have to be quite special to match all the Angkor Wat temples. Whilst I still put Angkor Wat (complex) a clear number 1 for things to see in SE Asia (so far), Bagan is in there in second place. My photos don't really do it justice, due to haze & trying to photograph a large area with a pocket camera. Possibly some issues with operator skill as well. Getting around the temples, your options include hiring a horse & cart (with driver), a mountain bike or an electric scooter. As I like independence & cycling on sand is too much hard work, I went for the electric option @ just 6000 kyat per day. Riding around the quiet tracks on this was very pleasant. Quote
Guest Posted January 25, 2016 Posted January 25, 2016 Did you go to Mt. Popa? No. I was enjoying the sightseeing so much I didn't refer back to the guide book until the penultimate evening in Bagan. By then, I already had other plans for the following day. Quote
Moses Posted January 26, 2016 Posted January 26, 2016 Bagan Gay Activities: None I had quite a long Gay Romeo dialogue with one super cute lad in Old Bagan, who was very keen for me to visit his resort hotel to fuck him. I was keen to oblige, however, when it came to the ID question, his sister had apparently taken his passport. So that didn't happen. There were very few people on Gay Romeo or the other apps. The closest was actually working in the hotel, but he wasn't of much interest to me & that seemed to be mutual. In fact Bagan's gay scene is third largest in Myanmar after Yangon and Mandalay, but it is also quite hidden from eyes, and using dating application isn't popular. To find cruising places and sports is much easy with help of locals - they know right places. Word of caution: listen advises only from trusted locals (staff in hotel, guides), don't ask drivers or strangers. Quote
firecat69 Posted January 26, 2016 Posted January 26, 2016 Z909 the photos are great, especially like the red parasols. Quote
fedssocr Posted January 27, 2016 Posted January 27, 2016 Very nice. I think it's somewhat difficult to compare Angkor Wat and Bagan. Certainly both are amazing places. I did the balloon flight in Bagan and thought it worthwhile, but it is very expensive. I see there are now several ballooning outfits there rather than just one when I visited. But rather than pushing prices down they all seem to be charging the same high price. vinapu and Moses 2 Quote
vinapu Posted January 27, 2016 Posted January 27, 2016 Very nice. I think it's somewhat difficult to compare Angkor Wat and Bagan. Certainly both are amazing places. I did the balloon flight in Bagan and thought it worthwhile, but it is very expensive. I see there are now several ballooning outfits there rather than just one when I visited. But rather than pushing prices down they all seem to be charging the same high price. how much they want now? I paid 195 USD back in 2001 and considered money well spent with bonus of balloon landing right in front of my hotel! Quote
Guest Posted January 27, 2016 Posted January 27, 2016 I believe the balloon rides are over $300 now. Even if they were free, you wouldn't get me up in one of those things. I had a good enough time on the ground. Quote
fedssocr Posted January 27, 2016 Posted January 27, 2016 yes, I think it's in the $300-350 range now. It's very safe. The captain of my balloon was a British guy who split his time between Bagan and Cappadoccia. And they adhere to international regulations. There's a safety briefing before you launch and they're very strict about the position you need to be in on landing. The views and photos were stupendous. Moses and vinapu 2 Quote
Moses Posted January 27, 2016 Posted January 27, 2016 I believe the balloon rides are over $300 now. Even if they were free, you wouldn't get me up in one of those things. I had a good enough time on the ground. yes, I think it's in the $300-350 range now. It's very safe. The captain of my balloon was a British guy who split his time between Bagan and Cappadoccia. And they adhere to international regulations. There's a safety briefing before you launch and they're very strict about the position you need to be in on landing. The views and photos were stupendous. Yes, price reflects quality - there are only international sportsmen-pilots with own equipment... if you want to get lower price - best way to book balloon flight very in advance - in May-June for season November-March with discount 25-30% Quote
Guest Blackite Posted December 18, 2016 Posted December 18, 2016 Z909 what are the prices for paradise spa? Quote
Guest Posted December 19, 2016 Posted December 19, 2016 I THINK it was about 10000 for an oil massage. Not much. There was also not a great deal of high quality competition in Mandalay, so I would recommend it. Quote
Marrump Posted September 18, 2018 Posted September 18, 2018 I dont know who has been looking at facebook groups. there is a lot going on there. I am still exploring it. These are some facebook groups for myanmar offerboys, hookups and spa info. translation is a problem ... the android facebook app does not even try, google translate on a pc is ...... better .... SPA INFO (MEN ONLY) https://www.facebook.com/groups/547089345648767/ ဟိုမိုေအာင္သြယ္ေတာ္ Matchmaker https://www.facebook.com/groups/1655320668092287/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/1655320668092287/ မိတ္ထီလာ ဟိုမိုေလးမ်ား ဆုံမယ္ https://www.facebook.com/groups/1750887728542025/ HoMoေလးမ်ား ဆုံစီရာ https://www.facebook.com/groups/1912786749008957/?ref=group_browse_new ဟိုမိုခ်စ္သူမ်ား Lovers https://www.facebook.com/groups/342326492841360/ hope these links work. feedback? Quote
ChristianPFC Posted October 15, 2018 Posted October 15, 2018 Thank you for sharing. I used this post to prepare my trip to Mandalay, and now can report: GGG still open in same place. I couldn't find Paradise Spa, probably gone. Lime Spa reported closed on Travelgayasia (but so is GGG, which is still open!) so I didn't go there. Full report, and many more findings, here: Gay activities Myanmar Sep/Oct 2018 https://christianpfc.blogspot.com/2018/10/gay-activities-myanmar-sepoct-2018_15.html ggobkk, vinapu and Aux1010 3 Quote
