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Published on January 14th, 2010  | Last updated January 16th, 2010 | 157 page views so far | 
One of our visitors to our site asked whether it is easy to find a Muslim Halal food stall or restaurant in Myanmar. Although Myanmar is not a Muslim majority country, it is a multi cultural, multi religious country. Thus it is fairly easy, especially in large cities and towns, to find a Muslim Halal restaurant or food stall that caters not only the Muslim population, but also caters for the local non-Muslim population. Actually, contrary to outsiders’ believe, Muslim food is quite popular among the local Burmese people.
Most of the shops that sell Muslim Halal food are small to medium size restaurants or food stalls. There are a few Muslim Halal restaurants that serve Chinese food, but they are not very popular, and only a few can be found even in a large city like Yangon (Rangoon). Most of the time, it is shops that serve traditional Indian and Muslim food that are popular among the local people. These small restaurants and food stalls serve traditional Indian and Muslim food such as nan, roti, prata, puri, dosai, mutton curry, potato curry, beef curry and kabab. These food are quite popular among local Muslim population as well as non Muslim Burmese. All cities and most large towns in Myanmar have Muslim food shops and restaurants.
Muslim Halal restaurants and food stalls in Myanmar usually do not put the regular Arabic Halal sign, except those few high end restaurants that serve foreign visitors. Most of the time, they just write down “786” on their sign board. This is “786“ symbol is used as a substitute for Bismillah “In the name of Allah” or “In the name of God”. This is a traditional sign used in South Asia, mainly in Pakistan, India, Myanmar and Bangladesh.
In large cities, like Yangon (Rangoon) and Mandalay, you can find Muslim Halal shops everywhere. In smaller cities and towns, it might be a little difficult to find one. However, if you could find a mosque, you will be able to find some Muslim Halal food stalls and small restaurants nearby. Just look for a mosque in any town. They are similar to the traditional Arabic style mosques everywhere in the world. Ask your taxi driver or trishaw driver to bring you to “Ba-li“.
Muslin Halal shops will usually write the letter “786″ in Myanmar numeral. It looks like this.
We hope this information will be useful to all those Muslim visitors coming to our country.
Published on November 16th, 2009 | Last updated November 16th, 2009 | 432 page views so far | For foreigners to Myanmar, hiring a house maid is an important thing to do in Myanmar. Not only the house maid should be a skilled one, she should also be reliable and honest. Hiring a house maid in Myanmar is not as straight forward as you migh think, as there are no formal agencies to handle such kind of things. However, there are some informations available for you that would aid you in finding a good house maid in Myanmar.
The following suggestion and information assume that you are living in Yangon (Rangoon) and trying to find a house maid in Yangon.
- First of all it’s difficult to find a house maid and more difficult to find a good one. However, for foreigners, since they can pay more (than locals) they tends to get qualify maids.
- Ethnic maids are among the highest scored because of their personality (fair skin, decent looking), sincerity, loyalty and cleverness.
- It is better to keep several single tasking maids; one for cook, one for cleaning and one for babysitting.
- But if your family size is small, let’s say maximum 3, you can keep a multi tasking maid who do both cooking and cleaning but you have to pay more than single tasking one.
- Mostly, hiring a maid is done through contacts by means of mouth to mouth advertising.
- But there are some Christian missions or churches acting like agent service to help the ladies from remote areas to get a job as house maids.
- There are some private brokers also but they are not much reliable.
- The best way to get a maid is through contacts from people (driver, maid, cooks, etc) who are currently working at other foreigner friend’s houses.
- There are some maids who have been working for foreigners for many years that they are well qualified. Some of them can even cook European, Western foods & Japanese foods and communicable in English.
Fees/salary
- For well qualified cooks, salary is over US$ 100 per month up to US$ 300 per month.
- For experienced maid (cleaning & washing) salary is around US$ 50 to 80 per month.
- You can get an inexperienced maid at around US$ 30 to 40 per month.
- The salary of maids for locals is much lower than above but foreigners have to pay more naturally (as they are expected to have more money).
- You can pay the salary of the maids either in FEC or equivalent Kyat.
Hiring Tips
- Try to search one through your contacts (colleagues, their driver, etc) and community services (like Christian missions).
- You can also try local employment agencies but you will be bind by contract and service charge. However, it is usually the easiest way.
- Make sure you really know the source of your contacts to get reliable maids because there are always bad people on earth.
- There is no standard for terms and conditions for work, everything is by negotiation. Make sure both of you agree upon terms and conditions of work before hiring.
- Make sure you give fair quality of life as they are your staffs, not servants. There are also government organizations who are watching for abuses of maids.
- Lastly, don’t be too mean if you want experienced maid. You will get what you paid for.
This post is contributed by our guest contributor Myo Thaw.
Published on November 11th, 2009 | Last updated November 16th, 2009 | 142 page views so far | On the eastern side of the Inle Lake is Maing Thauk. This village is the place of colonial era Fort Steadman whose remains now are a few crumbling gravestones near the orphanage. The village of Maing Thauk is built on both land and water, on stilts. The two halves of the…
Published on November 2nd, 2009 | Last updated November 2nd, 2009 | 161 page views so far | West of Ywama is the Indein (Intein) Village. Indein (Intein) in Burmese means shallow lake. True to the name, the village of Indein (Intein) is situated in the shallow part of Inle Lake. The village can be accessible by boat only during rainy season and winter, and cannot be reached by…
Published on October 26th, 2009 | Last updated November 2nd, 2009 | 147 page views so far | The village of Inphaw Khone, situated to the west of Nampan village, is famous for its traditional weaving workshops. This village, due to its weaving industry, is a popular stopping place for tourists. The weavers, most of who are young girls, skillfully weave beautiful, multi-colored, ornate fabrics using the local made traditional weaving machine made of bamboo and teakwood. It…
Published on October 21st, 2009 | Last updated November 2nd, 2009 | 285 page views so far | Inle is famous not only for its leg rowers of boat, but also for its unique style of aquaculture. Inthas live not only on the lake; they also live off the lake. Inle Lake provides them with food – fish from the lake as well as vegetables from its famous floating…
Published on October 13th, 2009 | Last updated October 15th, 2009 | 130 page views so far | Photo by Thinzar
Village of Nam Pan is situated to the south of Ywama village. The whole village is situated on the stilts over the water, which is a traditional way of building houses in Inle Lake. The Oldest pagoda…
Published on October 7th, 2009 | Last updated October 7th, 2009 | 131 page views so far | Phaungdawoo Pagoda stands in front of the main boat landing in Ywama. This Pagoda in Ywama is famous among locals as well as tourists visiting Inle Lake. Considered the most sacred
Published on October 7th, 2009 | Last updated October 7th, 2009 | 271 page views so far | Ywama (meaning main village) Village is famous for its daily floating market. There are other floating markets in other villages around Inle Lake but the floating market in Ywama is the largest of all. Sadly, once this famous floating market has now turned into a traffic jam of boat loads of…
Published on October 7th, 2009 | Last updated October 7th, 2009 | 111 page views so far | Jumping Cat Monastery
Nga Hpe Chaung village is famous for the Kyaun Khon Kyaung (Jumping Cat Monastery) in the village. The abbot at this monastery at Nga Hpe Chaung Village trained the cats to jump through the hoop like in the circus. Many local travelers and tourists visit this monastery just the see the cats jump. Apart from the jumping…
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Myanmar Kyat – US Dollar – Thai Baht – Singapore dollar Exchange Rate US$ 1 = 1020 Kyats
FEC 1 = 1030 Kyats
Singapore$ 1 = 720 Kyats
Thai 1 Baht = 32.50 Kyats
Updated: 2 February 2010
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