Diving information in Myanmar (Burma)

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Diving information for Myanmar (Burma)

Currently, you may have 4 places to pratice scuba diving in Myanmar :

- Ngapali
- Ngwe Saung
- Mergui Island with the Andaman Resort
- Mergui Island with sia Whaless a compagny specialized in cruise and diving in Myanmar (also opening a branch in Ngapali)

Scuba diving is a subject we know well, Patrick (one of team member in yangon) is both a Federal diving teacher with French License, and a Padi Diving Master.

General security situation about diving in Myanmar.

Globally, in Myanmar, there is no doctor, no hospital that is qualified to deal with diving accident and decompression problem. There is no ompression/decompression chamber.
From a medical point of view, relating to scuba diving, you are more or less on your own.
More specificaly :

- Ngapali	Ngapali is located of the Gulf of Bengale, separated from central Myanmar the Arakan Mountain range, with a elevation (on that part) from 1000 m to 3000 m. It is means, no medical evacuation by plane, you need to take the road. Between 16 to 24h hours before arriving Yangon.
- Ngwe Saung	Ngwe Saung is also located on the Gulf of Bengale but you can reach Yangon in only 6h hours. So far, there is no regular plane from Pathein (1 hour away) to Yangon, but it could be an option. Also there is a quite big hospital in Pathein, but as mentioned above, no medical team qualified to handle scuba diving accident.
- Mergui island - Andamann resort - Cruise is the Mergui	Any problem during a cruise in the Mergui (sometimes days away) or at Andaman resort means you have to go to Puckhet in Thailand where you can get a decompression chamber and medical staff qualified for scuba diving accident.

Which company is organizing diving in Myanmar :

- Ngwe Saung - Ngapali : Diving is mainly organised by hotels. Scuba diving equipment are more or less maintain, there is no professional dive master Padi , even less with a French Cmass license.
It seems that Asia Whales will develop a diving center in Ngapali but we have nothing confirmed yet (september 2013)

- Mergui : Andaman Resort - Asia Whales : These two compagnies have been operated by professionals since a long time. The feed-back we have got is very good, even if they are far from everything is case of trouble.

Best time to scuba dive in Myanmar.

Myanmar is under the very strong influence of the monsoon from May to middle of October, with a lot of rains, a big waves (in Arakan area it rains around 6 m in 5 -6 months....). So it is definitively not the time to come in Myamar for scuba diving (and most/ all hotels on the beaches are closed).

The best and only season to practice scuba diving is from the middle of October to the end of April (middle April in Mergui area, they get the monsoon earlier)