C & C globetrotting around the world…

On Day 200 of our trip, we arrived in Yangon, Myanmar. The country had been closed to the outside world for a long time, but has been slowly opening up. We wanted to see it while it’s still unspoilt by mass tourism. It hadn’t been on our original plan, but we met lots of people who had recently been, so we decided to go instead of going to India.

Yangon, a 5 million inhabitant city was Myanmar’s capital until 2005, when the governing Generals were spooked by an astrologer and moved the capital North to Nay Pyi Taw. Apparently the new city is a ghost-town, only for government officials. Yangon is still the biggest city and the country’s economic hub, as well as the gateway for international visitors (all international flights arrive here). The British moved the capital here from Mandalay when they took over and renamed it Rangoon (and called the country Burma, a name still used today). The city is very vibrant and after a restful night and a good breakfast at our hotel, we set out to explore it. Our first mission was to exchange our dollars into kyat, the local currency. You need to bring crisp new dollars when coming to Myanmar, as other ones are either not accepted or exchanged at a horrendous rate. There are no ATMs where you can withdraw cash yet, nor can you buy kyat outside of Myanmar. After exchanging money we visited Sule Paya (pagoda) on a round-about in the heart of the city centre. The gilded pagoda was built about 2200 years ago and is still an important place of worship to locals.

Central Yangon is like a time capsule of grand colonial architecture, so we walked straight down Pansodan Road, looking out for colonial-era buildings pointed out in the Lonely Planet walking tour. The imposing government buildings are newly renovated, but the other ones are in a very poor condition. You can see that they were once beautiful and the large boulevards make you imagine the grandness of days long gone. We also visited the elegant “Strand Hotel”, rated as a “top hotel in the world”. In Montreal, the “St-James Hotel” in Old Montreal is the only one that falls in the same category. It is pretty unbelievable to see, especially compared to the dirt on the road outside. Inside the fancy hotel we visited an art gallery with beautiful artifacts and paintings. We also walked to St-Mary’s Cathedral, a very imposing building. It celebrated its centennial last year and was beautifully renovated for the occasion. We walked around some more and Christoph got invited to join some guys kicking around a “cane ball”, a game often played by locals. We then stopped for a coffee break on a pedestrian street, had a coffee and watched people walking by. It is really amazing to see lots of modern shops selling flat-screen TVs, computers, iPhones and other electronics. We had been told that Myanmar is stuck in the stone age, that they don’t have electricity, only brown water, that we should talk to the locals to let them know we are aware of their plight. What we see is a totally different reality. The political regime might oppress freedom of speech locally, but the people are very much connected to the outside world and they talk openly to foreigners about the government. We were even told that now that the government is becoming more liberal, they are thinking of shutting down the “Censure Department” since they will be jobless. To our biggest surprise, we discovered that the TV in our room had “Deutsche Welle”, “TV5 Monde” and “CNN”. Wow! We had read that one should bring books to give them to people so they know what is going on in the outside world. Well, we guess we don’t need to do that anymore! They also have internet cafes with access to Facebook, Gmail and international news but the connection is painfully slow.

There are also modern supermarkets with all kinds of Western products and the prices aren’t exorbitant. We really wonder how this “embargo” really works… Actually, the embargo is only from many Western countries; the ASEAN countries trade freely with Myanmar, especially China, India and Thailand. Maybe the US and Europe decided to re-open the dialogue with the government because they are seeing an unexploited 60-million people market?

During our stay in Yangon, we also spent Day 202 of our trip. From now on, we’ll have been longer in South-East Asia than in China, which makes us realize how long we were in China! On that morning, we woke up very early due to chanting outside. We went to look and saw young nuns dressed in pink and orange walking and chanting on the street to collect alms. It’s funny because we had planned in Luang Prabang and Chiang Mai to go see the monks collect the alms in the morning, but we never managed to get up so early (5-6am). Now the nuns came to us. Also during our 3-day stay, we did the Circle Line, a 3-hour slow-moving train ride around Yangon and the neighbouring countryside. It was a very interesting ride with the locals, who use it to get to places and to transport all kinds of goods. At almost every station there were vendors who hop on and offer fruits and water for sale. It was nice to see the surrounding area as well, although there is a lot of poverty here. We also saw lots of small farms and a very busy market right on the platform. The locals were all friendly, smiling and helpful with directions. After having almost completed the circle, we hopped off to visit a temple. Mailamu Pagoda was nice to visit since we were the only foreigners there and we saw many different Buddha images, many which we hadn’t seen before. We then went to Shwedagon Pagoda, THE pagoda to see in South-East Asia. Its glorious gilded spire is the defining image of Yangon and has been a symbol of Burmese identity for 2500 years. Every good Buddhist in Myanmar tries to make at least one pilgrimage here in their lifetime, making this the Mecca for the Burmese. The main zedi and its 82 surrounding buildings form an impressive compound. The pagoda is said to be built upon a hill where Buddha relics have been enshrined, including 8 hairs of the Buddha. The original height of the pagoda was 66 feet, but since the 14^th century many successive monarchs re-gilded it until it reached its current height of 326 feet (98m). The top 3 sections of the pagoda are decorated with 3154 gold bells, precious stones and thousands of diamonds.