The place to be in Burma (Chaung Tha Beach (Burma))

Member Name: sun-is-shining

Product:	Chaung Tha Beach (Burma)
Date:	04/06/09 (115 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cheap, friendly people, amazing beach

Disadvantages: It is quite hard to travel there

I absolutely fell in love with Burma during the 3 weeks I was there this year. A wonderful country with great beaches - even though I only found out about them by chance!
After a last lazy day in Mandalay we wanted to go to Bago in order to do the 'Golden Rock pilgrimage'. Well, we wanted to :-) The night bus direction Yangon was supposed to drop us of in Bago. So at 7 we woke up and started arguing with some TukTuk drivers - nobody has ever heard of the Guesthouse we wanted to go to. After 10 min of heated discussions - mind you, I had just spend 16 hours on a bus built for dwarfs without any hope of some sleep - one of them said that the GH would be close to Sule Pagoda ... Äh, Sule Pagoda? Where are we?!
And there we were, back in Yangon, 4 hours and 150km away from Bago after our driver didn't drop us of - and it nearly took us 30min to figure it out!

That was the end of our 'travel' - we decided to take the next bus to the beach to spend our last week in Asia sunbathing.

Well, that would have been easy in Thailand or Cambodia, but not Burma! We had to go to the MTT aka Myanmar Travel&Tours, the governmental travel agency and ask permission! Yes, you heard right, I had to write a letter that went like that:

Dear Sir,

I am a traveller from Germany. I would like to travel to Chaungtha Beach from the 27th to the 2nd of February for leisure purpose. I promise not engage in any political procedures.
Thank you really much!

After copying our permission 10times and getting millions of stamps we set of for the bus station - only to learn that there are no buses that day from Yangon. The only possibility was to go to Phatain ( 6$ and 5 hours) (which sucked, gloomy, unfriendly town with nothing to do) and get a bus from there to Chaungtha (3$ and 4 hours) the following day.

The bus was amazing, I mean truly amazing in every sense of the word! The next 4 hours were spend with our knees close to our chins as tons of rice bags covered the floor. I loved it! Don't go there if you want to travel in style and comfort!

Chaungtha is, I'm glad to say, well worth the efforts we made to get there...A small village, a few budget resorts and the rest is a pretty large stretch of beach lined with palm trees. Beautiful! And there is a gorgeous looking island out on the horizon called 'White Sand Island' (or something equally as unoriginal) that we're going to at some point.
Lonely Planet bitches a bit about Chaungtha Beach saying the sand isn't white enough...Does anyone really care that much about the colour of the sand? It hardly detracts from the beauty and the fact that the beach is almost empty of foreigners.

We stayed in the first resort (I cannot remember the name but it's No.1 in Lonely Planet) we found, the bus stops there automatically and we were positively surprised. After a bit of friendly negotiating we got a double room with own bathroom and terrace for 14 $ - an amazing price given that it was so luxurious, with TV, huge king-sized bed and hot water. I think it was the nicest hostel room I ever stayed it.
From bed to shoreline was a 50 meter walk - a dream come true!
A beach bar is attached to the resort, having fried tuna while looking at a perfect tropical sunset was the perfect finish for our holiday.
The food is great and cheap. You have the choice between the normal menu or choosing a fresh fish every morning which is prepared in whatever way you want. I'd highly recommend you the grilled tuna or the steamed red snapper. A whole fish is between 3 and 4$ and caught fresh every morning.
A pineapple shakes and an avocado salad makes it a healthy and delicious dinner!

Chaung Tha has a lot to over and we easily spend a week there without getting bored.

We walked to a beach a bit outside town that is described in the LP as 'deserted, with white sand and only 15min away'. Well, it was more a 1 hour walk but it was well worth it! Palms lined the sand and really, we haven't seen a single person the whole afternoon.
Found a single light bulb at the shoreline. How did it come there? Why is it not broken? Anyway, great photo!

Ok, as I'm going to study Marine Biology I should be comfortable with the Open Ocean. Well, I am - as long as I'm not sitting in a tiny nutshell with strong swell and not even a bit of shade. I know, I'm spoiled :-)
Our great fishing trip ended in a small disaster as I was seasick after 5 min and spend the next two hours feeling extremely sick, groaning and almost dying. I don't even want to know what the fishermen thought about me. I'm really pathetic, I felt sick the whole day and couldn't really enjoy the grilled fish. This is one of the things I'm really sad about as I'm sure that I would have enjoyed it. So next time lots of anti-motion-sickness stuff!
But I caught two fish! Ha, I'm the born fisher!

The fishing trip can be organised at the reception, it's 15$ per boat when you only want to catch small fish or 25$ when you want to catch tuna.
There is no shade on the boat and of course no toilet - it's just one of these tiny nutshells you wouldn't trust on a small river.
It is great fun but bring motion sickness stuff and lots of sun block with you!

We also went to the 'White Sand Island'; the name is wrong, it should be 'Coral and Shell Island'. I loved it! One can spend hours just walking in small circles and just collecting all the shells and corals...a dream! It's a great place for snorkeling too. All these cute little fish, I think my favourites were the yellow ones with black stripes. Or maybe the box-shaped blue ones? Anyway, it was great! That's the great thing, it is just nobody there. There are for sure tons of better snorkeling sites but I guess it's hard to fine one that is more untouched!

You can rent the snorkeling mask at the resort, it's 50 cent for the whole day.
Boats leave from the harbor down the road, 20 min walk or 50 pence for a motorbike ride. Walk there early in the morning, it's a nice and refreshing walk through the village. Boats leave every 30min depending on water conditions and cost 1.50$ return.

The island is rather small and there's nothing on it, no tree, nothing ... apart from a big golden Stupa. I think sometimes they exaggerate a bit with these things. Although I have to admit, it looked quite nice! Oh, there's a small shop but you'd better bring water from the main land - I'm not sure if it's open every day.

There might be beaches with whiter sand or easier to reach but you wont find a beach in Burma with so friendly locals, so empty and so cheap. Don't miss Chaung Tha - it was one of the highlights of my trip and it will be one of your too!

Summary: I went there by chance and fell in love instantly!