Visiting Myanmar as a Vegan (Yangon & Ngwe Saung)
Are you visiting Myanmar as a vegan? Did you know that you can now fly direct to Yangon, Myanmar (or Burma) from Chiang Mai? Well you can, with Bangkok Airways! It takes about one hour. Myanmar was the one country I haven’t visited even though it’s very close to Chiang Mai so I decided to give it a try. For food, this blog from British Girl Abroad in particular was very useful to me and of course you can always use HappyCow to find more restaurants if you do visit.
We landed in Yangon and the first place my friend and I went to that night was Indian and Nepali Only Vegetable, in downtown Yangon not far from the guest house that we stayed in. It’s a small, local, basic and cheap restaurant. I liked it immediately when she asked me in good English whether I was vegan as soon as she came to take our orders. I ordered a vegan Thali so I could try a few different things which was fantastic value at 5000 KYAT. That’s about 120 THB.
The next morning we headed to Nourish Café. This was very a very different experience from the previous night’s meal. It is a modern, spacious, western style café with air-con. I was happy to find it as the food they sell is just what I love. It’s all vegan and non-fried options such as smoothie bowls and wraps. I loved this place although I did feel I was cheating a bit by not eating the local food. Prices were also higher than local food and a meal and drink cost the equivalent of about 250 BAHT.
Another place we went to in Yangon was Union Bar as I had read that they have a few vegan options. Actually they only had one main dish option because the chickpea burger that I thought sounded great, contained egg in the bun. I appreciated their understanding of veganism and knowledge about their options. I was disappointed though that they only had one option and although it was OK, it was quite over-priced as the meal (power-plate) and a green smoothie cost what equals to around 500 BAHT.
We then took a bus to Ngwe Saung which is a good six hours drive from Yangon but it’s the nearest beach to get to without having to fly. It was a bit harder to find vegan food here but still possible if you know the right word. I learnt the word thatalow (apparently meaning literally lifeless) from the blog I mentioned earlier and asked someone to write it for me in Burmese and showed that everywhere I went.
Some meals were good and some meals were not so good. The famous tea leaf salad that is often found at veggie restaurants in Chiang Mai (especially Free Bird Café) is sold everywhere here. It’s sometimes called ‘pickled tea leaf salad’. The flavour is the same but in Chiang Mai you always get a lot more veggies whereas here, it’s a smaller dish with a larger amount of the peanuts, beans and oil. A couple of times I ordered it, it seemed to be floating in a ridiculous amount of oil so after that I made a point of always asking for as little oil as possible.
There are two restaurants I want to give a particular mention to. One great thing about my experience in Ngwe Saung was meeting up with my friends of Vegan Food Quest and their friends. We had an amazing meal together at a restaurant called Social House in the main town where they had already successfully eaten and so we ordered dishes that we already knew they could make vegan. These were the sweet and sour vegetables, veggie curries and a few of the tea leaf pickled salads. They were not too oily and all tasted great. I’m sure Paul and Caryl of Vegan Food Quest will be sharing more vegan Burmese experiences of their travels for you to read on their blog too.
On our last night in Ngwe Saung, by chance we found another great restaurant. It wasn’t the one we’d been looking for but it caught our attention because they actually had a sign outside saying ‘vegetarian’ which is a rare thing to find on this beach. It’s called My Home & Café. The menu actually had a page or two dedicated to vegetarian dishes (all vegan by default) and they also spoke perfect English. I ordered a masaman curry here and we also tried the Burmese tea leaf salad here too. Both were great.
It was easier than I was expecting to eat vegan at these places. If you are visiting Myanmar be aware that it will probably be different outside of tourist areas, which these two places are. Also of course there are some parts of the country that are not safe to visit so please do your research before visiting here.
Have you visited Myanmar as a vegan? What was your experience? Please leave a comment if you have!
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