Burma Shopping Tips by herzog63 Top 5 Page for this destination

Everywhere: Longyi - Traditional clothing of Myanmar

You can buy one of these beautiful hand woven Longyis and street stalls, small stores and Big Department stores. There are different qualities of fabric to chose from so that will dictate the price you will pay. Cheap cotton can be found for about US$1 and the silk made Longyis will be quite a bit more expensive. Some take over one week to make on a hand loom.

Theme: Men's Clothes

many: Buy your handicrafts up country

If you're interested in buying handicrafts I would suggest buying from Mandalay , Bagan or Inle Lake and not in Yangon. The prices where much cheaper out of Yangon. And I guess that would depend on your bargaining skills. In Nyanungshwe I was able to buy hand carved wooden buddhas that where about 6" tall for $2.50 each. The starting price was about $10 I bought some 5" tall hand carved wooden Nats (Protectors) for $1 each! I hadn't really planned on buying anything until the end as we travel very light and I didn't want to carry anything else but the price was right so I bought a few items. These were bought at the Nampan Market that is about 3/4's of the way down the eastern side of the lake.

What to buy: If you are there and lot's of other tourists are around you will not get these prices! We were the only foreigners at the market for about 2 hours as we got up and left Nyaungshwe at 6 am. Just as we were getting ready to leave there were lot's of tourist boats showing up. These buddhas are not old! They are new and are made to look like antiques but are probably 3 days old LOL If you buy real antiques you may have problems getting them out of the country as the customs guys know fake antiques from the real stuff. For me fake antiques are great because they are so cheap!

Theme: Local Craft