Welcome to Myanmar!

Myanmar has many different faces and is certainly offering something special for any traveler to whom traveling is more than staying at a beach resort (although that’s possible as well). It is a country with a very rich culture, unspoiled nature and, to some visitors’ surprise; it’s also a country with a genuine friendly population who very much want to be in contact with foreign visitors. People are open-minded, easy going and interested to learn more about anything.

It’s the people that make the country and that’s certainly true for Myanmar. Hundreds of ethnic tribes have been living in the area for thousands of years and many have continued their centuries old, local way of life till now. This diversity is generally celebrated — Myanmar has official public holidays for almost every world religion, and sometimes joked about — with some healthy feeling of “competition and envy” for the better food, costumes, jewellery or other cultural differences from the various states. Myanmar people (ethnic Burmese are called Bamar, as well as Chin, Kachin, Kayin, Karen, Mon, Rakhine and Shan) LOVE to try the food from other states (Shan and Rakhine food is very popular in Yangon). Whenever people travel through the country, they will always bring food from the area they visited as a present for family and friends who stayed at home.

Khiri Travel wants to show you the best the country has to offer: from the highlights like Yangon, Bagan and Inle Lake, to the less visited places like Northern Shan State, Mrauk U, Mon & Kayin State, my team is ready to show travelers the real country.

I do hope to see you soon in Myanmar – it’s a dream destination for real travelers who want to experience a different country with a very welcoming population. In Myanmar language there is no word for “tourist” – there is only a word for “guest.”

Edwin Briels

Managing Director

Meet the team

Khiri’s Myanmar Team consists of 24 enthusiastic young professionals—each brings a healthy dose of local knowledge, interest in the tourism sector, great communication skills, and adventurous spirits to the table. Collectively, our team has over 60 year’s tourism experience in diverse fields, including FIT tailor-made tours, group tours, incentive travel, ticketing, and hotel reservations.

Our Myanmar office offers many new excursions to show visitors the real Myanmar rather than the typical ‘pagoda rally’ offered by many other tour companies. We want our clients to experience the genuine friendliness of the Burmese and so we work hard to organize excursions where our clients can engage with locals. We encourage them—while visiting and enjoying the country—to leave some positive impact for the people.

We are especially proud of our off-the-beaten path excursions in for example Bagan—where visitors can discover daily practices of the people living around the ancient temples, or downtown Yangon—where our heritage walking tour unveils the city’s colonial architecture. We have many distinguished staff, but Ms. Su Mon Latt is well worth mentioning: When cyclone Nargis hit, she had already been working in tourism for over seven years but decided to quit her job in order to help people in the areas devastated by the cyclone. Now that the delta has recovered, she has returned to the tourism sector by joining our Myanmar team in 2010.

Our General Manager, Edwin Briels, has ten years of work experience in Myanmar. Before joining Khiri Travel, he worked for Air Mandalay, Exotissimo Travel, and Balloons over Bagan. Edwin is fluent in Dutch, English, and French, as well as conversant in German. What he likes most is showing tourists the real friendliness of the Burmese people and to help facilitate genuine interactions between foreign visitors and locals.

The highlight of our trip was Bagan and our tour guide Naing Naing. Naing Naing was an incredible guide – so generous, outgoing, and knowledgeable.

- Julie Smith