Travel to Burma?

[olwick]

Hi,

I've traveled quite a bit with my gear, but Burma/Myanmar may be a unique experience. I'm wondering if anyone here has any experience with hand inspections or flying through there. I can't imagine it's any worse than Africa when it comes to airport security, but thought I'd ask.

Thanks,

Mark

[Mablo]

It's been a few years since I've been to Burma for the last time but I don't think things have changed very much. You'd would probably take off from Bangkok (Thai Airways and Air Bangkok have regular connections to/from Yangoon) where airport security regulations are followed strictly. Your hand luggage will go through a scanner but at least in my case I've never seen any effects of it on my negs.

In Yangoon, I don't remember they had a scanner for hand luggage. They had an old personal scanner for searching hidden metal objects like hand guns and such but I don't recall my hand luggage being questioned or opened when entering to or departing from Yangoon. Things might have changed of course.

The main thing is not to show oneself as a journalist of any kind. Not even a professional photographer if you can avoid that. You will always be monitored where ever you go. You hire a friendly taxi guy for the next day's itinerary (all day for $15) but some other guy shows up to accompany you in the morning. Cameras are OK in general but never point your camera to anything questionable like police or military personnel or anything that could have a political aspect. A Japanese pro was shot dead a couple of years ago in Yangoon when photographing a political rally.

[olwick]

Cool, thanks. I had heard about the "being followed" part. I'll be doing strictly landscapes and temples, so I'm sure they'll get bored with me quickly.

Good tips, thanks.

[I Am Luna]

I went to Burma earlier this year. Carried a bag full of film with my cameras. We looked sort of like photojournalist so they asked us a few questions. Hobby, hobby, hobby is all we told them and we were let though without our film getting x-rayed on their old 80s era scanner.
They will hand inspect if you tell them about the film. My film was still scanned and there wasn't an ill effects as far as I can tell on my 50/100/400/1600 speed film.

Are you going to Bagan? They have an even older x-ray machine so we made sure to not get our film scanned by that one in particular.

We were followed at the Rangoon train station. Talking to too many police officers and Burmese military members.

RIP Kenji Nagai.