We planned our Burma trip to fit into the usual Christmas/New Year slowdown at work, and it's of course very convenient since it's right next door to Bangkok. But Thailand doesn't take Christmas off, and in fact Somchai had his final exams on Christmas day, which is crazy. Anyway, we took the very short Thai Airways flight into Yangon airport the following day (photo is aerial view of Yangon). The airport was surprisingly cavernous, since there are so few flights into Burma. The airport was pretty efficient as well, although the weirdness of this weird country was quickly apparent. The government is particularly weird when it comes to currency. When the dictators came to power, they abolished all the larger denomination currency notes in order to cripple the rich Burmese. Later, the uber superstitious generals decided to mold the currency to their lucky number, 9. So again they abolished the usual 10, 50, 100 kyat notes, and replaced them with 9, 45 and 90 kyat notes. So you better remember your 9 times multiplication tables if you're planning on doing a lot of wheeling and dealing in Burma. There's an official exchange rate of something like 25 kyat to the dollar, although nobody uses that since the market rate is over 1,000. And then as a foreigner, you have to exchange $300 at the airport for $300 in Foreign Exchange Certificates, which look like monopoly money. But these FEC's can be used just like regular currency wherever you go, so at any point in your trip, you have the choice of using FEC's or the 9-based local currency. And the dollar is universally accepted as well, so you've got three choices. But treat your dollars very well, since any dirt, crease, or god forbid rip or faded ink will cause them to be universally rejected.



After getting our monopoly money, we went through customs, where they only look for mobile phones. If you bring one, they take it and give you a receipt, then you can collect it at the airport when you leave. It must be a huge logistical pain to keep track of all this, but it apparently works. We did the smart thing and didn't bring our phones. The other function of the customs officials is to check out your brands, which is why I learned that the friendly customs lady uses the same shampoo as me.



One last airport observation, which will be unsurprising; Burma's advertising industry is not well developed. While we walked through the airport, we saw the usual ads all over the walls, and watched some video ads on the tv while we were waiting for our luggage. And we immediately noticed that there was only one woman who was in every single ad, as well as on the product labels. We would see her approximately one million times in our week of travels, and I have to believe that this overexposure diminishes her value as a spokesperson since she endorses every single thing you could possibly buy.