VOA - Visa on arrival

Convenient and proven Myanmar government sponsored e-visa service was shut down along with the change of Myanmar prime minister somewhere in July 2005. This was a good option for those of us who live far away from Myanmar embassy. The closest one for us is in Belgrade 700km away and the second option is to arrange it trough a local agency at Berlin embassy, which costs $150 per visa and passports are sent via express mail service.

After cancellation of e-visa service there was some chaos for several months as nobody knew for sure if and how is it possible to arrange visa on arrival. Luckily new program was announced on October 1^st where selected local agencies can arrange you visa on arrival. Since this was a new policy there were not many posts on thorntree about reliability of local agencies and their success rate. We decided to go for VOA via Magado travel agency.

The process run very smoothly. We've sent all required data and in one week we have received color scan of our VOA. They have informed also SilkAir our flight operator to Myanmar. Visa fee is $20 and there is additional service and document handling charge of $35 per visa which totals in $55 and is still much cheaper than $150 via Berlin, but you don't have a stamp in your passport to show at check-in and boarding.

At Ljubljana airport everything went smoothly, they were happy to see our B&W printouts. We checked the baggage till final destination - Yangon and got boarding tickets for Zurich. When we arrived there we went straight to our transfer counter to check-in for Singapore and Yangon. The lady at the counter was very friendly, be she did not believe our papers are valid and there is VOA program. She made several phone calls and nobody knew nothing. Finally she managed to call representative of Singapore airlines who said our papers are OK. We got our boarding tickets and went happy back to waiting room. At boarding time we queued and when we got to the guy checking passports and visas he didn't let us board the plane. He took us out of the queue and he wanted to see our papers once again. When we showed our VOA printouts he was just smiling and said "Believe me mister, there is no visa on arrival waiting you in Myanmar." We explained that everything is quite new and that we will go to Singapore as we don't need a visa if we are not allowed to board SilkAir, he let us board the plane.

In Singapore we had no problems whatsoever and were allowed to board the plane without being asked to show visa or VOA papers.

When we landed in Yangon International Airport, we were wondering if the lady from the agency will be waiting for us and how we are going to recognize her. When we entered arrival terminal people were already queuing up for immigration control. We knew that we will not be able to enter the country without visas, but then a nice young lady with long black hair showed up and welcomed us. She took us trough immigration, overtaking everyone who was standing in the queues. She took our passports and while we waited for our baggage she arranged visa stamp, which looked a bit different than the ones arranged at embassies, in our passports.

In less than hour after we've landed we arrived in our hotel room, downtown Yangon.

Underground Bunker II

Big hall
Canon EOS20, EF-S 10-22, 1/60s, f/3.5, ISO 800, flash
Yesterday evening we went to see an underground bunker build for political elite arround 1950. The second one is located nearby, but it was impossible to find the entrance in the dark if you don't know exactly where it is.

The bunker

With more than 500 meters of 2 meter wide and 3 meter high concrete corridors and several side halls the bunker looks quite impressive. The biggest hall (on the picture) is over 30 meters long, 7 meters wide and 7 meters high (we did not measure it). At the far end the bunker rises towards the surface and looks like a mine shaft with collapsed wooden supports. It is dangerous part of the bunker and I don't recommend you venture there as the ceiling can collapse. The construction was abandoned before it was finished. Rumors goes that because of problems with underground water.

Cave life

We could see several grasshoppers and bats hanging from the ceiling, but our torches were not very strong to search for smaller animals. There were also tiny roots hanging from the ceiling at the very end of the bunker. Most probably it comes close to the surface.

Cave formations

The water is slowly leaking trough the ceiling and walls therefore several cave formations started to form. In the last 50 years they had some time to grow, but are still relatively young in comparison to those in nature caves.

Occasionally there was calcareous sinter on the ground and first traces of stalactites. On the ceiling there were many up to 25 cm spaghetti stalactite. We've found also one cave pearl.

Human influence

The bunker gets some visitors from time to time and they leave some trace. Luckily we haven't met anyone yesterday as this would be quite a surprise for everybody. We could find some branches, broken glass and beer cans lying on the floor. There were also several graffiti on the walls.

The two bunkers are located close to Ljubljana, between Javor and Pance. There was also an article in Nedeljski dnevnik in 2001, which is available here. On the same link you can find more detailed map of the bunkers.

Myanmar (Burma) 2006

Shewegadon Pagoda
Canon EOS20, EF-S 10-22, 1/100s, f/14.0, ISO 100
Also this year we've spent significant part of European winter in SE Asia. This time we've decided to visit Myanmar (Burma). Our trip lasted 4 weeks and we started on 22nd of Dec 2005, just two days before Christmas.

After studying THE Book and following ThornTree posts we've decided to take a circular route trough Yangon, Kalaw, Inle, Mandalay, Bagan, Ngapali, and back to Yangon.
We arranged the tickets from Ljubljana to Yangon trough local agency and ordered visa on arrival (VOA) trough Magado, one of the Myanmar travel agencies. We hit the road early in the morning and the great adventure started ...


... more stories and images will follow in the next days.