Myanmar Crossing - Burma Senses

[drkiwiklr]

Hi all,

We've just crossed Myanmar by motorcycle from Thailand to India (well, were delayed at the border because of bureaucracy). We did or crossing with Burma Senses, organised by Win. The crossing has been great, with no hassles or drama, but there was some information we wanted to share which we did not realise beforehand.

Burma Senses is a subsidiary of Asia Senses, a Vietnamese company. They subcontract and purchase the actual tour from a local company called Myanmar Senses (not affiliated with Asia or Burma Senses). They also hire a local independent guide to do the actual guiding. For us, on two motorbikes, we have a van accompanying us with 3 people: a local guide, a man from Myanmar Senses, and a driver. Burma Senses is merely the middle man in the arrangement.

Don't get us wrong, Win at Burma/Asia Senses is very helpful and easy to deal with, but if we were to do it again we would probably cut the middle man and deal directly with either Myanmar Senses, or the local guide directly, to save on costs. Whilst we are stuck at the border, Myanmar Senses (not Burma Senses) is covering our accomodation costs, and the boss is coming from Yangon to Tamu to try and help rectify the situation.

The guides name is Soe Myint Htay, he is a young (31 years old) local guy who has been guiding for about a decade, and knows his country very well. He speaks fluent English, and even understands all idioms. He has his own motorbike, and can accompany tours on that. Easy going and pleasant to get along with, and a great sense of humour.

His email is (with permission): soe060@gmail dot com. You can contact him directly for overland border crossings. I would not hesitate to use him for a tour (he is the only one of the three who speaks English).

Interestingly, in Myanmar they are not allowed to use the term 'Burma', so Burma Senses is able to capitalise on he fact that that is the name most of the world knows them by.

Just our two cents, as we thought we were dealing with a local company

Cheers,
Mike