Nice itinerary. You've obviously done your homework.

1.. In Mandalay, I agree the places outside of town are more interesting than the city itself. Our favorite place was Sagaing, and we could have spent the whole day there. Do visit the U Bien Bridge at sunset, go out on a boat there to watch the sunset. I'd avoid the other things people want you to see in Amarapura (like watching the novices eat - how intrusive!). We also didn't enjoy Ava/Inwa as much as other places, you are required to make four and only four stops along with everyone else. We didn't visit Mingun, so I can't comment on that. The one site in Mandalay worth seeing, IMO is the Mahamuni Buddha. This site ties togtehr many of the wars in SE Asia, as sacred Buddha images and relics were the war booty plundered. The Mahamuni was plundered from Mrauk U, and there are bronzes plundered from Angkor there as well.

2. I can't help you much with Kentung, as we didn't go there. Be aware that some villages are off-limits right now because of the flighting. Realistically, you'll just have to go there and see what places are open, talk with other travelers and get recommendations from a local guide.

3. Before you go out on a boat at Inle, decide where you want to go. Otherwise, you'll be taken on a "tourist circuit" consisting mostly of workshops of various sorts. We spent one day going to sites on Inle like InDien (fabulous! arrive first thing in the morning before other boats are there), go to the 5-day market (unless it is at the floating market - avoid that palce at all times!). Your second full day go to Sankar, the southern part of the lake. Lovely, less visited, ruined stupas rising out of the water, very atmospheric. PS - I'd go to Kakku rather than Pindaya.

4. Personally, I'd skip the side trip to Mt. Popa. You only have two days in Bagan, barely enough to scratch the surface of the amazing temples there.

You might want to take a look at my two trip reports here from 2009 and 2011. Click on my name and a list of my trip reports will come up. Photos at www.marlandc.com

I second much of what Kathie said. We spent several hours in Saiging and thought that was the most interesting part of the ancient cities. I actually liked Mandalay city and think it is worth half a day. I'd skip Pindaya caves if time is tight. I was completely underwhelmed. For details of my 3 week trip you can read my TR.. I think you will love Myanmar, as most travellers who go there do.

Your timing is quite similar to my own visit last November.

I tend to agree with the others, with a couple of lateral points. I can't comment on Kengtung but it seems a long way extra to go for a short visit. I suggest spending a little more time in Bagan, Mandalay or Inle.

For the "3 cities" tour in Mandalay I hired a car with driver. At 55,000 kyats it wasn't cheap but I felt it was well worth it. See my trip reports for full details (I'll post the Inle reports tonight): http://www.fodors.com/community/asia/trip-reports-myanmar-visit-november-2012.cfm

In Inle I asked around at the many tiny tourist agencies in Nyaung Shwe until I found a trip with minimal visits to tourist traps - although I quite enjoyed seeing how they turned lotus root into fabric - and including Indein. It took about an hour each way on the water to and from Nyaung Shwe but I also found that interesting too.

For that reason I suggest you don't book the boat trip until you arrive, because then you can negotiate the trip price and destinations. You might also find other travelers to share the cost in those little agencies. Most boats are set up for four or five. I shared with two other singles which brought the price down for me and added some conversation to the trip.

Consider a self-guided tour on bikes in Bagan. However, I am getting too creaky in the joints for sustained bicycling so I took a horse cart. I deliberately took several horse-cart rides in Nyaung U the day before to allow me to check the driver's understanding of English and also to see how he treated the horse. And also to check if the cart had springs Then I negotiated with the driver, but the price is pretty standard at 10,000 kyats for a half day and 20,000 for a full day. That was for a single; I don't know if it costs more for a couple.

I agree with the ShweDagon pagoda in the evening on your first night. Try to include a ride on the circle train when you return to Yangon.

Thanks to all for the responses; I need to do some research and I'll have more follow-up questions. But one question for now -- re Kathie's post that some of the Kengtung villages are off limits: what's the source of this info (I've seen Kathie mention it on another recent thread) and how can one get more clarity on whether there's enough to not off-limits to make it worth the journey?

LAX_Esq- I was thinking about visiting Kengtung as well and have been told that currently there is not a problem with visiting the villages. You do need a permit and a guide but they are not closed. The problem that concerned me is that there is no guarantees about what it will be when you are ready to travel. To me, it seemed to be such a highlight but I was concerned about what might happen and whether the situation might change again. Are you working with a travel agency as your itinerary was also the exact one we wanted to do but leaving out Mandalay and a little more time in Inle. We have not heard back with from any of the in countries agencies so it has been discouraging.

lhgreenacres-- I'm planning this trip for March 2013 and I'm having a terrible time getting responses from the agencies. It looks like you're going in 2014, so I suppose you have less urgency. But it's really frustrating. I'm also having a difficult time finding contact info for local Kengtung guides.

Question re Mandalay-- Can y'all please give me a sense of the times it takes to get to the various sites (Sagaing, U-Bein, Mahagandayon Monastery, Ava, Mingun) from the city and how far they are from each other. Trying to determine how best to use a driver.

Another question for those who follow the threads carefully: is there a good listing of guides/drivers/carriage men that people have used in the major cities who can be contacted directly. I saw Kathie's posts about Minthu, and I'm interested in more names like this. Thanks.

We used Santa Maria TA for booking our trip and they supplied all of our drivers and guides where we used them. I have no direct contact info. We used a guide and driver to see Saiging and the ancient cities, as well as 2 sites in Mandalay on the way to the ancient cities. We left the hotel at 8am and we did not return until 7:30. We went to Mingun by a boat which SM arranged, and our driver took us to the boat. but you could do this on your own using a taxi and the public boat. For most of the sites within Mandalay city, we walked and/or took taxis.

We also used Santa Maria. It is hard right now to get responses from travel agencies because they are swamped with requests. Everyone wants to go to Burma. So much so that even those traveling outside of high season are having problems.

We had a driver but no guide in Mandalay. We spent one full day visiting all the places you mention except for Mingun. Ir was very useful to have a driver for that full day.

PS If you don't have an agent get you a driver for Mandalay, you can arrange with a taxi driver on the spot. Or your hotel can get you a driver. Be aware that the Mandalay airport is about an hour outside of town.

Kathie-- Do you have contact info your your driver (assuming you recommend him)? I always prefer to go with a personal rec rather than relying on an agency or a hotel to arrange one. Also, how prompt is Minthu in responding? I emailed him 24 hours ago, and I'm not sure if a lack of a response is to be expected or if it would indicate that he's not available for our dates.

Sorry, I do not have a contact for our driver, he was arranged through Santa Maria.

MinThu will respond to you. It's high season right now and I expect he is engaged every day. I doubt that he can access his email every day.

I think your itinerary looks good. We went to Kengtung last Feb and it was one of the highlights of our trip, so I'd really recommend going there, especially if you want to get off the tourist trail and see the hill tribe villages before they change. I wouldn't worry about villages being off-limits. There were some we couldn't visit, but it really didn't impact on our trip at all. The situation is nothing like in Rakhine for example. Kengung itself is a great town - it felt quite unlike any of the others we visited. It's also relatively unvisited by tourists, so you won't see many foreigners - we didn't see any others on our treks (another big plus for us!) You will need a guide to take you to the villages - easily arrangeable whilst there or in advance. The guide will sort our your permits - it just takes a few minutes to call in at the immigration office en route to your trek. Go now, before it all changes!

We've just come back from a trip to Burma and used Asian Trails. We were very happy with them. I don't know how quick they will be to respond. Might be worth a try. http://www.asiantrails.travel/myanmar/index.php

Everyone: If you had to do one or the other but not both, would you rather go to Mt. Popa or to Kakku (and Taunggyi)? I'm not sure which is a more "unique" experience that we're not going to get based on other things on the itinerary, i.e., whether Mt. Popa is special if you've already seen Sagaing vs. whether Kakku is special if you've already seen InDien and Sankar.

Q: Question re Mandalay-- Can y'all please give me a sense of the times it takes to get to the various sites (Sagaing, U-Bein, Mahagandayon Monastery, Ava, Mingun) from the city and how far they are from each other. Trying to determine how best to use a driver.

A: I didn't actually time it all, but we started in the morning after breakfast and ended up at U-bein bridge in time for sunset about 5:30pm. I describe the day here: http://loraltravel.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/mandalay-amarapura-sagaing-and-ancient.html

I used a driver from the Sein Myanmar car service in the 7 Diamonds travel office. I can't recall the exact address; they were in cenrtral Mandalay not far from the Unity Hotel. From memory the fee for modern a/c car and english-speaking driver was 55,000 kyats.

Cheers Alan

I found the 7 Diamonds web-site. The Sein Myanmar car service appears to share their premises. I also used 7 Diamonds to arrange my boat tickets for the fast ferry from Mandalay to Bagan. Those services were professional but I can't comment beyond that.

http://www.sevendiamondtravels.com/

I used Bravo Travel to arrange my Air Bagan flights from Yangon to Mandalay and Heho to Yangon. They also arranged the Hotel Zegyo in Mandalay. Although I would not recommend that hotel I was very pleased that Bravo were able to find acccommodation last November when there appeared to be no other rooms anywhere in Mandalay at the time. Both flights were correctly booked and I had no problems.

http://www.myanmarbravo.com/index1.html

As a side note, that flight from Heho was in the same F-100 which crashed exactly a month later

Cheers, Alan

Kathie: if you're reading this, would you mind emailing me at latimewaster (at yahoo). I wanted to ask you something offline. Thanks!

LAX, I will email you later this morning.

Hi, we're wanting to go directly from Mandalay airport to the see the ancient cities (skipping Inwa though) and then end the day in at our hotel in Mandalay. Would we be able to find a driver at the airport to do this, and what should we pay? Thx!

Don't count on it. Mandalay airport is an hour's drive from Mandalay. When we landed there were no taxis waiting there. We made advanced arrangements with Santa Maria to be picked up at the airport, and were glad we did.

Good to know; thanks. Any idea what's a reasonable price?