Best destinations and travel tips for Myanmar Motorcycle Tours

What’s so special about Myanmar

Myanmar is an emerging destination for motorycycle adventures and offers unparallel mix of landscapes, peoples, cultural heritage and natural beauty. No matter where you go you will be welcomed by friendly locals and genuine smiles. Sounds like a cliche, but this is Myanmar today. A perfect playground for intrepid travellers and adventurers.

Decades of isolation and neglect set back Myanmar to catch up with the modern world and rest of Asia. Much has changed during the past 10 years – new roads and bridges have been built, countrywide mobile networks provide excellent coverage, maps, motorcycles and spare parts are more widely available.

Myanmar is still a new and frail democracy where power transition from military junta and courtship of ethnic militia controlled regions to join federal state remain a somewhat utopian dream of Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters. Despite political uncertainties Myanmar remains one of the safest countries to travel. Foreigners have been always welcomed with open arms and tourism is the largest and fastest expanding employment sector. The country only had only around 1,5mil arrivals in 2019 compared 39mil of Thailand same year. Myanmar is still very off the beaten trails and authentic destination.

Planning your trip to Myanmar

In order to really experience the country we recommend at least a week for your motorcycle trip. There is extensive domestic flight network so you can conveniently combine extensions to your journey.

Here are a few brief suggestions what you can do in 1,2,3,4 weeks

1 week – starting in Yangon. Road trip to tropical south. Limestone cliffs and caves of Hpa An, thriving coastal city of Mawlamyine, amazing beaches and seafood in Dawei and Ye.
starting in Mandalay. Cradle of culture visit ancient royal capitals around Mandala, Unesco world heritage temples in Bagan ride up to Shan highlands, Kalaw and picture perfect Inle Lake

2 weeks – starting in Yangon. Complete south ride all the way to Kathaung southern most tip of Myanmar. Making side trips to Mergui Islands and best beaches. OR ride north bound and finish in Mandalay. There are various routings you can take ranging from cultural heritage sites, western coast hidden beaches and tribal hill regions of Shan, Kayah and Chin States.
starting in Mandalay. Cover the most famous destinations in central Myanmar and take in Chin State or upper Shan state Hsipaw, Lashio waterfalls and Mogok valley of rubies. Couple weeks is also enough time to do a comple Chin State loop through stunning hill region.

3 weeks – this is enough time to cover many of the cultural highlights, some off the beaten trails treasure and have bit of down time basking on remote paradise beaches or do an epic road trip from Mandalay to south or v.v.

4 weeks or more – optimal time for grand journeys and indepth exploration of regions like Myanmar’s Nagaland, Sagaing division and remote parts of Shan and Kayah.

Discovery Rides offers repatriation service for bikes in case you want to finish your trip without back tracking and exit the country through different gateway as arrived.

Overland through Myanmar
For caravan tours or passage through Myanmar we recommend to spare at least 7 days. It is possible to ride through from India to Thailand in long 4-5 days without seeing anything. We highly recommend small detours and taking in some of our most impressive destinations like Bagan.

Travel regions of Myanmar

SOUTH | CENTRAL | WEST | EAST | NORTH

Southern Myanmar

Tropical paradise beaches and islands, limestone karts mountains and caves, good roads and great seafood

Southern Myanmar has much to explore from British constructed former capital Rangoon to Mon kingdoms, first European settlements and trading ports in Mawlamyine and Kyaikkami as well as in Dawei and Myeik. Which act now as gateway to some of the beaches in Myanmar on the mainland as well as on the pristine 800 island Mergui (Myeik) Archipelago.

For history buffs southern Myanmar offers glimpse to dark history of death rail way and second world war events.
The “deep south” is famed for excellent diving, azure sea and deserted islands with powdery white sand beaches. 800 islands Mergui Archipelago is emerging as Maldives of Southeast Asia with many private islands with luxury resorts. There are also lower budget options cozy small bungalow resorts, island camping and day snorkeling or diving trips and even eco-volunteering possibility helping national park rangers to protect and monitor endangered wildlife.

There are 3 border crossings to Thailand in the south. Myawaddy-Mae Sot, Htee Khee-Phu Nam Ron, Kawthaung-Ranong and domestic flight connections from Yangon to Dawei, Myeik and Kawthaung.

Central Myanmar

Cradle of Burmese culture and heritage of ancient kingdoms lie along 2000km Irrawaddy river and its valley

Most famous sites that you might have heard of are Mandalay, the last royal capital of the Burmese. This is where we usually start our upper Myanmar trips and store our motorcycles. Mandalay is busy and dusty city of 2 million people. We could say it is the motorcycle capital of Myanmar. Most of the people are still driving around on scooters here.
A short drive out of Mandalay you will find several old kingdoms ruins, Ava, Sagaing and Amarapura which can be visited in one full day. Heading south from Mandalay along the river you will arrive to Bagan, the most impressive cultural heritage site of Myanmar. Over 3000 temples ruins are left as heritage of this mighty kingdom.

You are not permitted to ride motorcycle in Bagan but can hire battery powered e-bike to cruise around archeological area and to explore small trails connecting temple groups to each other. Although being one of the most popular tourist destinations in Myanmar you can still easily find temples where there are no other people. The villages around Bagan are also worth checking out.

From Bagan popular route goes east to Kalaw and Inle Lake stopping at Popa mountain on the way. Alternatively you could head west to Chin hills region where people are christian and animists and live in small villages built on mountain slopes and practice facial tattooing. You can also drive to new capital city of Myanmar, Naypyitaw, from Bagan and continue to Pinlaung. There is nothing much to see or do in Naypyitaw, but lots of accommodation options at good value. The ride from Naypyitaw to Pinlaung is very scenic and one of our favourites. Pinlaung is a small junction town at the root of amazing limestone mountain range.

From Pinlaung you can either go south to Loikaw, capital of Kayah state or take beautiful mountain road over to Inle Lake. This is a great ride and much recommended. When visiting Loikaw it is essential to know that there are just a few villages where visits are permitted officially and you must go with local guide and apply in advance. This is because there has been insurgency in Kayah state for decades. Ceasefire was reached only recently and not all parties have signed the treaty. Also some of the areas according to locals may have landmines so travellers need to avoid getting off main roads and trails if not accompanied by locals who know the area.

Chin-state-myanmar-motorcycle-burma-motorcycle

Western Myanmar and Coast

Western Myanmar is perfect for adventurous motorcycle rides. Explore the rugged hill region of Chin state and tribal villages, visit the cultural heritage treasure of Mrauk U ancient trading town by the Kaledan river (this area is currently off limits to tourism due to AA and Tatmadaw conflict).

West coast of Myanmar has some stunning beaches. Ngapali Beach is the most popular and most developed beach destination in Myanmar and perfect place to chill for a few days. There no jetskis nor nightlife but cozy resorts with quaality services and some activities around. Heading further south along the coast of Bay of Bengal you will arrive to Kanthayar Beach where there is nice new eco-resort and in Gwa which has simple accommodation is emerging as a new beach destination.

There are some beaches worth exploring in this region and motorcycle is the way to get around. When heading further south along the coast you will come to Chaungtha Beach, a popular hang out for locals and Ngwe Saung which has long beach and occasional baby waves for surfing or body boarding and lots of resorts. Ngwe Saung was for long Myanmar’s number #2 beach destination.

There are more beaches to be explored south of Ngwe Saung. French-Burmese couple owned G7 Plage resort. From here you can swing back to Pathein and ride through Irraddy Delta to Yangon. A great journey and well off the beaten trail.

One of our absolute favourites is Chin State

Therefore it deserves own paragraph at very least. Chin State offers a range of adventure tour options for the intrepid traveller. Be it misty hills, mountain forests, small friendly villages, unique Chin culture or intriguing facial tattoos of the Chin ladies Chin State has charm to many tastes. Due to its rugged terrain and remoteness Chin State remains largely undeveloped and off the main tourism trails.

Northern Chin State Hakha, Falam and Tedim have been rarely visited by travelers due to remoteness and lack of transportation links. New airport in Falam is set to change this. The road condition has also improved greatly here in the past couple years and there are no travel restrictions anymore in Chin State nor except near Paletwa township close to Rakhine state border.

Most of the travellers head to southern Chin which is easily accessible from Bagan, Mandalay and Monywa. The draw is Mt Victoria / Nat Ma Taung national park range, tribal villages and unique facial tattooing tradition.

Myanmar-motorcycle-tour

Eastern Myanmar

Eastern Myanmar much of it being Shan State has something for everybody. The greatest variety of tribes, lush nature, river valleys and plenty of small roads to explore. The climate here during the winter months can get cold during the night but day time it’s usually warm around 20-25c. Make sure you are prepared with right gear for your motorcycle tour.

Here are some of our favourites in Shan region.

Mandalay where most of our bikes are is a great place to start your trip. Heading out from Mandalay north east is Pyin Oo Lwin, a hill station town with some nice waterfalls and botanical gardens. This is nice town to make a night stop.

Driving north of Pyin Oo Lwin you will come across Gokteik Gorge with its serpentine road and in few hours through nice rolling hills scenery you will reach Kyaukme . Kyaukme is small and slow paced Shan and Palaung trading town. From Kyaukme we often do rides to the mountain villages where it is possible to stay overnight. These are quite challenging roads so only experienced riders should drive up to mountain villages and local guides are needed for fixing lodging and food preparation.

From Kyaukme it is 40km to nice small town Hsipaw by the Dokthawaddy River which is one of the lost Shan kingdoms. Make sure to visit the abducted Shan princes house and visit waterfalls and villages on the hills if time permits. We highly recommend driving up further north to Lashio where our local partner runs cool trips to ethnic villages (with overnight stays), hidden waterfalls with cliff jumping opps, rides to Badwin mines and Hsenwi among other adventure trips to places where hardly other travellers have been to.

A cool loop is to drive from Kyaukme west and on to Mogok or Mandalay. There are hardly any filling stations along this road let alone mechanics so make sure you are well prepared for off the beaten trails adventure and bumpy ride. The scenery is spectacular and this is one of our favourite rides especially when driving over jungle covered hills to Mogok.

Mogok

Myanmar’s ruby land is one of the most mysterious places in Asia. Over 80% of worlds rubies come from this valley. There 3 roads leading to Mogok of which the 2 southern roads are accessible for foreigners. For the time being it is still necessary to obtain permits for visiting Mogok. The roads leading to Mogok are great to drive especially on motorcycles. There are lots of curves lush jungle and occassional monkeys along the way.

Some other trail ideas…

Drive south from Mandalay to Kyaukse and take small rural road to Ywagan. In Ywagan there are coffee plantations, waterfall and cave to explore. These are quite far from town and difficult to find so local guide to show the way could be helpful. There are couple guest houses in Ywagan if you decide not to continue to Pindaya or Kalaw on same day.

From Ywagan you can drive your motorbike to Pindaya through region often called the Tuscany of Myanmar. Rolling farming lands and limestone mountains in the horizon – and there is the Pindaya cave which is pretty kitch but so Myanmar and worth a curious visit. This is pretty big cave decorated with thousands of Buddhas.

Within 1-2hr drive you will reach to Kalaw old British hill station town surrounded by pine tree covered hills. There are some nice trails and tracks around Kalaw for motorbike explorations.

Kalaw is 70km from Inle Lake which is popular tourist destination and must see place. At Inle you should consider spending at least one day on the lake on boat trip to visit villages built on stilts over the lake and see the leg rowing fishermen.

There are couple vineyards near the lake producing Myanmar’s premier wines well worth a visit. For those who fancy some more challenging riding can head up the eastern mountain range to Pao tribe villages. There are many small roads leading up making it possible to do loops and returning to lake.

It is also possible to ride over the mountain range to Kakku and back to Inle via Taunggyi and Kyauk Tha Lone.
Heading further south to Loikaw and surroundings see our Central Myanmar guide.

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Northern Myanmar

Upper Myanmar is usually overlooked by visitors in favor of more well-known “classic” destinations in Central and Southern parts of the country. But this doesn’t mean that the North has nothing to offer – quite the contrary you will get a chance to see untapped natural wonders and ethnic diversity while staying off the beaten trails. We will head North of Mandalay to visit multi-ethnic Kachin capital Myitkyina, Putao Himalayan mountains, beautiful lake Indawgyi, big rivers and lush green valleys.

Myitkyina is a business center of Kachin State. Resources are jade, gold, amber, teak and forestry products, and agricultural products. Myitkyina is the town where we can visit Myitsone which is two rivers meet Nmaikha and Malikha join to form the main waterway of Myanmar – Ayeyarwaddy river it’s located 40 km away from the city.

Putao (aka Fort Hertz) is a small town situated in the far north of Kachin state in a temperate valley at 457m (1,499ft) elevation. The town is split half by the Namlang River and you can see the snow-capped Himalayan Mountains in the far distance. The valley is surrounded by rugged hills which some are covered in thick unpassable jungle.

The road to Putao has been recently extended and paved and is passable around the year, but permissions are required for overland travel and currently only locals are allowed to drive to Putao region from Myitkyina.

Other interesting places in the north are Sagaing division and Myanmar’s Nagaland. Discovery Rides can arrange guided tours to these regions.