Yes, the situation changed March 31st. Since then, Yuan are acceptable for exchange at banks and moneychangers that deal in foreign exchange throughout the country; previously Yuan could only be used/exchanged in northern border regions of Myanmar.

Agree with you yelp, definately book ahead for hotels (even hostels) especially in Yangon. Booking ahead might be difficult in smaller towns like Hpa-an and unnecessary in Myawaddy (which has just opened up if you are coming from the west) since Myawaddy just recently opened for overnight stays, few foreigners have stayed there since this has been allowed...however once overland access from Thailand is allowed (apparently after around April 24th) expect this situation to change rather quickly.

Regarding money, I'd personally take a combination of currencies, some Euros, a small amount of US dollars just in case and the rest in Baht, Yuan or Sing dollars (if you are arriving from those currencies, otherwise stick to Euros or US dollars). Personally the availability of ATMs now was a blessing. It's not realistic to bring in large volumes of cash so being able to fund the rest of your stay using ATMs will prove very valuable but by all means, to avoid being hit by bank fees bring a reasonable amount of cash as well (and book all your hotels in major cities like Yangon, Mandalay etc. online, paying by credit card).

I agree with you there rejected_goods. Looking over both 14x and tom69s posts I see that 14x is trying to defend the practices of some companies to charge foreigners and locals differently, which as Greginchina notes is illegal, while tom69 simply feels there is something genuinely wrong with this practise, noting that he doesn't want to use the services of companies that practice this kind of system. Fair enough. Let him decide.

It's a free country after all! No, actually, I'm wrong, haha...and freedom of speech or opinions are not highly valued either in China but these kind of forums seem to be devices for foreigners to give their opinions earnestly since they may not dare do so in person...

Anyway, being a Thai-American myself, I have seen both sides of the coin. In America, trying to charge any group differently would be interpreted as discrimination (although it is commonplace to charge students, young people and elderly people less for many things since they earn less money, interestingly, this is not common here in China where they supposedly really respect the elderly).

In Thailand I have heard of foreigners being overcharged sometimes for little things such as when bargaining at markets, or maybe it's coz foreigners don't attempt to bargain that they get ripped off. Similarly, for those tourists (and expats) that choose to drive in Thailand, particularly motorcycles, if stopped by the police for various traffic offenses they often just pay whatever the police asks for, rather than bargain it down to 100 Baht (as opposed to the 1000 Baht the police requests). I keep telling my foreigner friends to just pay 100 Baht but to them 1000 Baht and the chance of avoiding having to pay a ticket seems easier...perhaps that's whats implied by getting ripped off here, but the Thai government, no matter which one it is would never do something to discourage tourism, such as create different airfares for foreigners compared to locals since tourism is very important for the successive Thai governments and locals hold a high view of the west...sure there are some instances where such things occur, such as at national parks and some "tourist" temples, but those price differentials are modest and tourists don't have to visit these attractions anyway.

Also, I've been to Australia too and I agree with you rejected_goods that some Chinese owned tourist stores and eateries such as restaurants may actually try to rip off their mainland Chinese customers, but I doubt anyone else in Australia would be attempting to do so, so I too would be interested in knowing what 14x means when he claims he was ripped off there.

You can get a multiple entry business visa for Vietnam, valid for 3 months at the Vietnamese consulate in Kunming. Costs 900 Yuan. Alternatively single entry is 350 Yuan. 12 month Vietnam visas are available in other cities/countries. Yes, it kind of sucks that you have to enter Vietnam properly and pay for their visas even if you are just staying for a day (or only a minute) but this is the way it is if you want to be official.

First of all, I'm very sorry to hear what happened to you.

Secondly, since we're on the subject, let me tell you about the much different treatment I got when I got involved in a traffic accident on the rural Thai-Lao border region in Thailand a few years back. A foreign friend of mine and myself (a Thai citizen) were driving my car when we hit a young kid while he was crossing the road (my friend was driving at the time, but I don't think it matters who the actual driver was). Long story short the kid was fine in the end, but we were very nervous during the wait at the hospital to make sure everything was OK.

The villagers were friendly and appreciated our efforts to make sure everything was fine. My insurance company provided them with compensation and we provided them a small amount to help with transport to the nearest hospital in the interim before the family received the money from the insurance company. The family of the boy did not attempt to extort money from us (not that we had much on us anyway, as we'd exhausted most of our funds and were driving back home to get back to work 2 days later), nor did they give us death threats.

I think it was very humble of those people considering the boy could have ended up much worse than he did. I'm assuming that your accident didn't leave the victims very badly injured, and yet they overreacted and tried to threaten you with death? That says something very bad about those people, who can't seem to keep their emotions in tact. They should learn something from my experience. The parents of the kid involved in my incident had to deal with a lot worse than these creeps you had the misfortune of meeting and yet those creeps handled it like superb assholes.

BTW you can rest assured that if one of those creeps tried to kill a foreigner, he'd be put onto the back of a police truck and shot through the back of the head with a single bullet. That's justice Chinese style for macho types who think they can threaten people for something that happened through no fault of your own.

Yes driving in China can be risky, so just take the proper precautions. On the other hand, I've seen plenty of minor accidents here in China where both parties settled the dispute in a civilized manner, so I think you unfortunately hit the wrong people...

I'm glad to hear everything worked out for you in the end....I'm assuming this is the end of this matter?

This post is a bit old so maybe information accurate in 2007 has changed by now, but apparently they don't care about the type of visa you have (at least not in Kunming). Yes, I got my license with just a tourist visa (although it was in the process of being converted to another type of visa), but at the time I only had a photocopy of my tourist visa with me, that showed an expiry date 3 weeks later.

Also, temporary Chinese licenses are issued to foreign tourists who wish to drive in China since they do not recognize international driving permits (IDPs) here, nor do they recognize foreign licenses, not even those from neighboring countries.