Burma: getting there

There is a limited choice of good connecting flights from the UK. Thai Airways has the best flight timings: departing Heathrow at 12.30pm, arriving in Yangon at 8.50am; journey time 15 hours. The cheapest return is currently under £700 but can rise to over £1,000 for winter departures. There are similar fares using Singapore Air a 20-hour journey via Singapore, and Malaysia Airlines , an 18-hour journey via Kuala Lumpur. Qatar Airways flies daily from Heathrow to Yangon via Doha with returns from around £600, though connecting times can be long on cheaper fares. Transfer time by road between Mandalay or Yangon airports and the city centres can be anything from 30-90 minutes, depending on traffic. Tourists can now use three land crossings from Thailand to Burma. The most northerly is Mae Sai to Tachileik, linking Chiang Rai to Kengtung, though you must fly on to reach Yangon or Heho for Inle Lake. Six hours south-west of Chiang Mai, the Mae Sot-Hpa An crossing is apparently being used by buses but I have not been able to verify this yet. From Hpa An it is a day's journey to Yangon by road. About five hours south-west of Bangkok and 50 miles west of Kanchanburi, the Htee Khee to Phu Nam Ron crossing accesses the Myiek peninsula though it's another five hours on poor roads to the port of Dawei and a very slow road on north to Mawlamyine. Selective Asia (01273 670001; selectiveasia,com) can arrange car-and-driver tours from Bangkok to Yangon using this route). There is also a sea crossing from Ranong to Kawthaung used by yacht charter companies such as Burma Boating (burmaboating.com) to tour the Myiek archipelago.