Changes

Hitch-hiking in Myanmar might seem difficult at first. You will face some trouble that can make it seem completely impossible. Here is a list of things you should be prepared for:

* This is usually not the case, but some people might be afraid about getting in trouble with the goverment, when they pick you up. I does not mean that the Burmese people are afraid of getting in contact with foreigners, but some will tell you this reason if you ask them about difficulties with hitchhiking.

* The people are too friendly. Some of you might know this situations where you are somewhere in a fucked up place, nobody is stopping, which is bad and after a while people gather around you because they want to know where you are from and what are you doing. This is also the situation in Myanmar, but here you can add that despite all this things the people also try to help you, which makes the whole situation even worser, because they don´t understand hitchhiking. With 10 people around you it is hard to stop a car and there you might have the situation that a car finally stops, you jump on and just want to leave and the driver starts to talk to the people on the street about you. They just want to help, but in the end the driver is so confused, that he refuses you and you are again with your buddys on the street. To avoid this, make sure to travel from one town/city to another, but always start hitch-hiking a little outside the cities.

=== Brand New Myanmar Express Highway ===

Myanmar hitchhiking is like heaven and hell. Here comes the heaven. Between Mandalay and Yangon is a brand new expressway since December 2010. They put much effort in this project. It was the third time after the fifties and the seventies, that they tried to build this road and finally it worked with Chinese support. Now they did it and it is one of the the greatest an easiest roads you can hitchhike. It is not really a challenge, good for beginners and a nice trip. Alot of cars drive the whole route between the two bigest cities, so you can jump on and off where ever you want. There is no confusion about what you do, because there are no taxis on this highway, only express busses in the night so the understand quickly, that you are looking for a ride in a car on the highway. Also the feeling is very special. It might be like Germany in the early fifties. You have a very new, big and fast road, but there are almost no cars on it. Maybe 10 cars per hour, which is not much for a toll road (the drivers pay about 7$ from Mandalay to Yangon). At the moment there are still people around the highway planting trees, or fixing some road borders and sometimes you might see some kids which are flying a kite in the middle of the road. Awesome. This would never be possible on the crammed european highways.