Arriving in Yangon was very easy – there was a money exchange booth in the arrival hall offering very competitive rates (see the post “Money in Myanmar”), baggage arrived very quickly and getting a cab into the city was no problem at all. There was no sea of touts as there are in some places.
Despite not having much English, the cab driver was very keen to point out to us “Our Lady’s house” across a lake as we passed it.
After checking in to our hotel downtown we headed for a travel agent we had been emailing from home. We’d been reading that the provision of hotel accommodation has not been keeping up with demand this year so that many hotels are fully booked – so we had decided to book the first few days of the trip. The office was a surprise – 2 floors each full with about 15 people trying to keep up with the demand. Our agent told us she had been regularly working very long days and weekends for months. She had done a good job in getting reservations for us at places we had been unable to access on line – so we exchanged vouchers for a wad of dollars and went on our way.
The office was very close to the Shwedagon Paya, one of the must-see things in Yangon, so we took the opportunity while we were in the vicinity. There’s a separate post about this.
That evening we had a look around the downtown area – it seems to be mainly an indian and chinese area – a chaotic jumble of businesses spilling out onto the pavement, street hawkers, street food stalls etc. The noise and heat and the smells tell you that you’re not in Kansas any more.
The next day we did a wider walk around the city centre seeing some of the buildings reflecting Yangon’s more prosperous past.
We stopped for coffee at a smart place offering proper coffee and wifi – it seemed totally incongruous in its location amid the street bedlam. I guess it’s a sign that the city is starting to change.
We stopped for coffee at a smart place offering proper coffee and wifi – it seemed totally incongruous in its location amid the street bedlam. I guess it’s a sign that the city is starting to change.
After that we visited the Sule Paya – a city center mini-version of the Shwedagon Paya. Again, interesting but not a patch on its much more opulent relative.
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