Kimkim Trip Reviews for Myanmar

My husband and I went on a 10 day tour of Myanmar for our honeymoon, and it was the best decision we could have made. What a beautiful country with amazing people! The whole Pure Myanmar team took extra care of us from our first contact until the end, treating us like friends.

We loved every part of the trip and were sometimes moved to tears of happiness -- some highlights being the circular train in Yangon and Shwedagon Pagoda, the elephant preservation in Kalaw, watching the sunset on U Bein bridge near Mandalay, the Pennywort Cooking Class and cruising Inle Lake during the pagoda festival.

If you are considering visiting Myanmar with Pure, you won't be disappointed. Just do it!

Thanks Anne, Cherry, Nay, Tim and Naing and our skillful drivers for an extraordinary life experience.

This trip was nothing short of spectacular. Most memorable I found the pagodas in Bagan, and driving around exploring them on e-bikes. Also, the boat trip on Inle Lake was very nice. Our guides were knowledgeable and sociable. The people in Myanmar are very friendly, the food is great and reasonably priced.
The one thing I didn't like was riding on a horse-drawn cart in Inwa. The horses did not appear well-kept, and to watch one horse pull a cart with four adults was just painful.

Great trip throughout. Our guides Aye, Nay and Thin was absolutely fantastic, and we had a lots of fun visiting the beautiful Myanmar. The guides gave us tips to the best vantage points to take our photos.

Ms Hsu Hlaing was very closely in touch with us from the get-go. From the planning stage till the end of trip she kept in touch with us and our tour guides as our visit to Myanmar spanned across 3 states.

She also customised the trip to our preferences. Eg, we skipped Mount Popa and on hindsight it was a good decision as it was monsoon season and the day slated for it became an e-bike free and easy around Bagan and we were drenched before evening due to heavy rains. She also booked us lovely accommodations that wished we had more time there!

We loved our trip that (We after all only had 5 nights in Myanmar) we were able to see very much of the attractions despite the 3 transfer flights between cities. We even had free and easy time.

On top of that, on our 2nd last day, we were able to totally change the itinerary on a last minute notice because we discovered vineyards in Inle! So our morning Mountain Biking trip became a lovely market visit and wine-tasting before we flew back to Yangon.

Overall we had a 5-star experience booking through Kimkim and Hsu Hlaing and would recommend this to anyone who wishes to visit Yangon

We had a really wonderful time in Myanmar, the country and people are beautiful and the food was simply delicious. Like others we were used to travelling independently and haven't used an agent before but our experience with Anne and everyone at Myanmar Pure couldn't be faulted. We were able to see/do so much more based on their advice visiting Yangon, Mandalay, Bagan, Kalaw and Inle and places in between. We travelled with our 2 year old and everyone went the extra mile to accommodate his extra needs providing car and bike seats, beautifully made up cots, flexibility in trip timing and a variety of travel/activities from air, bike, boat, horse to car and train. Our guides Min, Nay, Arkar, Wai and were all incredibly knowledgeable, friendly and helpful. Having spent many years living and travelling in Asia this was still a fabulously different experience. I have told as many people as I can about visiting Myanmar and using Anne and her team - thank you!! xx

Overall the trip was great. Anne put together a great agenda and her team of guides and drivers delivered, giving my son and I a very memorable experience. The one down event was a ATM owned by KBZ. Bank it took money from my bank account but did not dispense cash to me. I opened an investigation that day but The money has still not been returned. I advise against using KBZ ATM,s.

Anne was incredible from the first contact. She was flexible and seemed to understand the type of holiday we wanted and planned it fitting in everything we wanted to see and do.
All our guides were great and it was fabulous that they were all different.
Cherry was so bubbly and her knowledge of Yangon and enthusiasm to show us its highlights from the pagoda to trying the food was infectious. We laughed so much and felt really welcome.
Ney was more reserved but so accommodating and happy for us to climb every floor of every building, photograph every angle of every street and shop in every street of Mandalay. we joked with him and teased him and he just laughed. His knowledge of Myanmar history is incredible!
Aka was fun, taking us on a great scooter ride and showing us the highlights of Bagan including some great restaurants and encouraging us along to the UNESCO rock concert!!! His passion for Bagan and its history was also evident.
Naing was just an absolute delight! He wanted so much to please and share in our holiday. He had even surfed the net finding slang colloquialisms to share with us and desperately seeking to speak fluent English. He also is passionate about Myanmar, its history, culture and religion and has a lovely desire to see his country succeed. He shared a very intimate love of his family when he took us to his family home for lunch: an incredible experience with delicious food!

Cottage House in Pindaya, is an absolutely delightful homestay. The hospitality of the owner Miamia was second to none and her warmness and openness made our stay very special. The rooms are minimalist but clean with lovely linen and special touches of handmade paper wrapping the bathroom accessories, fresh mangoes from her trees and homemade jam along with a friendly, fun staff and great menu for dinner if you want to eat in. Breakfast also great.

Umbria hotel in Bagan was a great choice with a lovely infinity pool to use after a hot, dusty day out and big spacious rooms with nice linen. Also the proximity of the hotel to the sights and amenities was great.
The cooking class with Maymay was amazing. From the 7:30 start in the market where she explained the different veges and ingredients and their uses to the final sit down at the finish was so much fun and so interesting. Her passion for charity work was also infectious and truly admirable. I was so excited that we had been able to contribute in a very tiny way to helping children get access to books by doing her class.

One of the greatest experiences was having a day at the elephant camp feeding and bathing the great beasts. Hearing the story of the camp and meeting the wonderful man who set it up was very special. Being that close to the elephants and helping out was a privilege that I will never forget.

We had tea in 3 different families on our various adventures completely spontaneously with friends of our guides and the way we were made to feel so welcome was also a great privilege. We shared laughter, food and culture without language and that was incredibly humbling. In particular the lunch with Naings family was a very special time that I felt very humbled to be a part of.

All the modes of transport, train,kayak,cycles,e-scooter,trekking and boats in all the different waterways were such a great option as the perspective is so different from each seat!

The food was also a real highlight for this foodie! Curries, Mohinga, Shan noodles, ginger, garlic, chillies and so much fresh fruit and vege. What more could a girl want!

KimKim you certainly have my tick! When you want to add NZ to your list let me know.

Thank you for the opportunity to see Myanmar in such a fun,educational and varied way.

Amazing trip to Myanmar with Kimkim, Hsu Hlaing and our guides Tonn Tonn (Mandalay) and Min (Bagan). Itinerary was truly flexible and well planned - we managed to see so much! We felt this was also a really good value trip - all expecteds were included, hotels were really nice, tour was truly private and the price was very reasonable.

We felt our local specialist supported us well and was available for queries or for itinerary changes.

Planning process with Hsu Hlaing was very smooth and she obviously had a lot of experience. She was very responsive, communicative and proactive and made the whole experience getting our ideal itinerary so easy as a local expert.

Both our guides, Tunn tunn in Mandalay and Min in Bagan were excellent - friendly and professional and had so much to share with us about the history, people and culture of Myanmar.

Overall a great experience and would highly recommend for planning your dream trip with minimum fuss!

Hi there,

I was skeptical of using an impersonal travel service like this, but it worked out fantastic and I guess this is the way of the future. I am a single female traveler and usually go alone. Myanmar was intimidating to me so I hired KimKim to help me out. I will definitely use them again. Everything was set up exactly as they stated. The price was reasonable. They were with me every step of the way. They tailored my six day trip to Myanmar perfectly. The guides on the ground were flexible, spoke English, and super helpful.

Most importantly as a single travel, I felt 100 percent safe. I loved Myanmar in large part because of the experience that KimKim set up through the guides. I will use them again (did I say that already?!).

Some small nuanced notes: I chose the least expensive lodging choices. In doing it again, I would work more closely with KimKim on the lodging. One location was very far outside Yangon city center. I liked the place but the location was not ideal. The hotel/guest house set me up with a sim card and Grab so I could get around the city using this service (the Asian version of Uber). It only cost about $2 to drive the 15 minutes into town.

Also, very nuanced, I had a hard time leaving Myanmar. My guide helped me buy some jade rocks in the market. We didn't get a receipt as it was only $20 at a place that was not the kind of establishment with official receipts. However, when departing Myanmar, I was immediately confronted by Customs after the X-ray of my bags. I was accused of exiting the county with "precious" stones without a receipt and they were confiscated. The guide should have known that would have been an issue. If I had a receipt, it probably would have been fine. It could have got dicey. It did not. I lost $20.

I don't consider the rock incident KimKim or the guide's faulty. Myanmar is still emerging tourism. It was ultimately my fault as a tourism 101 will teach you to get receipts.

See you for the next trip KimKim,
Megan

perfect trip...exceptional attention to detail. looking forward to future collaborations.

Spent an amazing and memorable 10 days in Myanmar thanks to Kim Kim and Pergus Tours. The Kim Kim app Is easy to use and eases communication between you and the tour operator they put you in touch with. Hsu Hlaing made me feel that her main concern was for my trip to meet expectations in every aspect. A free call at the planning stage with an international consultant helped set expectations, flexibility on the itinerary was offered along the way, the guides were informative and hotels well chosen. It’s a real personalized service. It may be cheaper to organise everything yourself or directly with a tour operator, but if you have a busy life and little time to sit and plan going through Kim Kim and having the reassurance of a recommended agency to help you plan and execute your trip is a definite advantage and one I would recommend.

Over all we had a great time. It started out bad. We were NEVER told we needed visas before we landed which is what is done in most countries. In fact 2 weeks before we were asked for a copy of our passports which would have been a good time to say by the way make sure you have your visas. It cost me a little over $700 and a lot of aggravation but we made it through. I had to get a hotel room in Singapore airport for another night and a new flight to Myanmar. The places were great and the 3 first guilds were great. The last lady was a little less so. All the drivers were good. but the guy in Bagan who we had for 2 days was above and beyond. Always cold water and cold towels. He should get an extra star. The hotels were top notch and it was a nice touch in Mandalay to give us the room with the extra service. Thanks. The next to last night at the lake we were going to be put into a room with no AC Bad move it was 90 in the shade. We were able to talk them into taking us to the next hotel which worked out better anyway The boat the next morning left from the hotel. The only other thing I would leave out is the horse buggy ride. It has no seats and is impossible sit in. Was really terrible. On the way home we had a hassle with air because we missed the flight in they cancelled the flight out and it took an hour on the phone and $90 to get our flight back less the ungraded seats I had paid for

Anne is an exceptionally good tour organiser and we are so very happy to have chosen her (via KimKim) for our 10-day Myanmar tour. Anne was away in Turkey when we were in Myanmar but she kept monitoring our tour progress (through the guides), stayed in touch with us and NEVER took more than a few minutes to respond to our needs whenever we raised any issues. The tour itinerary she put together for us was also great and it covered everything we wanted to see and more.

Of course no trip would be enjoyable unless the tour guides are good. All our guides (Yangon: Maung Maung, Bagan: Thinzar, Mandalay: Nay and Inle Lake: Naing) were very knowledgeable, passionate about their country and went out of their way to make sure we all had a great time. It was a pleasure to have such fantastic tour guides.

We highly recommend Anne/KimKim to anyone wishing to have an amazing Myanmar experience and exposure to a very pious Buddhist society.

WE had a fantastic experience using Kimkim again this trip. We were linked with Anne and here tour guides really did their best to make our trip perfect. We really did not need to worry about anything and every day we had something interesting to do. The selection of accommodation was really comfortable even in the remote town's and we really felt like we were having thw 'boutique' and personalised trip we wanted. I am really happy we did it this way and let Anne organise everything because we would have never been able to have so many local experiences and have been so well looked after if we'd tried to organise everything ourselves. The highlights were Bagan and Inle Lake, it was boiling hot during the time of year we visited but when we got to more altitude the weather was more pleasant. I definitely will be using Kimkim again, twice now I have had great holidays and such memorable experiences through using these guys.

Our trip to Myanmar has been just excellent. From the start until the end the communication with Anne was great, as she organised in a very short time a trip which allowed us to see as much as possible of Myanmar in the limited amount of time that we had. Our guides were all knowledgeable and we felt always safe with our drivers, and we were able to experience local highlights which allowed us to get to know Myanmar and the people of Myanmar better (cooking class, eating lunch in the homes of local families ). All in all we were very happy with our trip and would definitely recommend Anne!

Everything about our trip to Myanmar was fantastic! The guides were personable and knowledgable. We asked TONS of questions and they always had the answer! Ann was amazing. She quickly made our last minute changes when we added another person to our hotel and a tour. We are so pleased with the whole process, flights, drivers, guides, hotels and tours, that we are already planning our next trip!

Don't know where to begin - Everything was great!

Anne made planning the trip an easy and interesting experience. We changed our format, timing and group numbers several times and she worked with us to ensure the trip went off without incident. She had excellent recommendations on where to go (we customized the format).

Tin, our River guide, was amazing. Comprehensive knowledge of Myanmar, the areas we traveled and of Buddhism; excellent English, friendly but non-intrusive, and flexible. He was always ready to work with us to make sure the group's varying needs were met. Far superior to any guide we have experienced so far.

The boat was exactly what we needed. Our cabin was roomy and bed was comfortable. The HVAC wasn't able to keep our cabin cool but others said they were very comfortable. Food was very good. Boat staff was excellent- pleasant, attentive and professional.

Trip up the Chindwin to Buddhist caves and monuments was most memorable. The "beach BBQ" the last night on the river was very special too. I had several comments from friends of "Trip of a Lifetime" and these people travel almost constantly.

I also appreciate the extra effort given by Anne and the Staff. For example, I left my phone on a Singapore Air Flight. Anne arranged for the phone to be picked up at Yangon airport and delivered to me during a stop on the Irrawaddy!

Kim-kim provided a great experience from design to conclusion.

All guides were amazing. We enjoyed the entire trip. Special thanks to Anne for taking care of all the details.

Thanks Anne for re-scheduling according to our needs - especially in light of the flight problems.

All went according to plan. All guides and drivers were helpful. We will be visiting Myanmar again with Kimkim.

Naresh and Nila