Our room was small, probably the smallest place I've ever stayed, but I guess that's par for the course on a small boat. Actually we were in a deluxe room, and we saw the standard room, which is was ridiculously tiny. The boat's crew was excellent, and the food was pretty good throughout. It was nice that it was small, about seventy guests, and old-fashioned, although at times it bordered on tired and could use a touch of updating. But it's definitely a unique experience, and by far the nicest way to see this part of the country. After a decent lunch on board, the guests were taken on a guided bus tour of Bagan, which was too close to tacky for comfort. So we opted for our own equally tacky but much more private way of exploring Bagan, a horse drawn carriage.

Our first night at the Strand we had dinner at the hotel, which was quite formal, expensive, and foul. On our second night, we took a fairly long cab ride to the Pansea Hotel. The Pansea chain is a sort of budget Aman, usually with lots of character. It was acquired a few years ago by Orient Express, which probably made the right decision in dumping the faggy name. So the hotel in Yangon is now called the Governors Residence. It's an old teak mansion on beautiful grounds, in the middle of the old colonial residential quarter. Most of the elegant homes are either embassies or owned by the Burmese elite, so the hotel is a bit isolated since it's the only non-residential building in the area. But it's a really pretty hotel, with a really nice French manager at the time we went for dinner. They serve dinner spread around their great lawn and pool, very romantically lit. Food was many times better than at the Strand. I didn't see the rooms, but the food plus the pool would probably make this my first choice in Yangon.

The temple complex is of course teaming with devotees, pilgrims etc. but it also functions as a community center, with lots of people seeming to spend all day here. And of course there are monks, lots of monks. There's a school for monks here where the boys were all chanting prayers at very high speed. You may be wondering how you can tell Burmese monks from Thai ones? Well, the obvious difference is that Thais wear orange while the Burmese wear maroon. But Burmese monks also just get a crewcut, while Thais are completely shaved, including eyebrows. Theologically there is no difference, as both countries adhere to Theravada Buddhism rather than the Mahayana Buddhism of Japan, Korea, China and the Himalayan cultures.

The stupa itself is immense, which is too bad for the photos' sake, because it's hard to see the amazing embellishment of the structure. Legend has it that the original eight hairs were encased in a small stupa made of gold. This was then encased in a silver stupa, then successive layers of tin, copper, lead, marble and iron. Nobody really knows what's inside now except it's definitely completely solid. Over the centuries each king would pour gold on it, usually some multiple of their body weight. It's now regilded once a year. Because it's so big you can barely see the decoration at top, so it's a bit of a waste, but it's quite elaborate. It's solid gold, with the top hung with gold bells, silver bells and jewelry. At the tip there's a gold flag that serves as a weather vane, covered with 3,000 diamonds and rubies. And above the flag is a diamond orb, completely encrusted with 4,400 diamonds, with a single huge diamond perched at the very tippy top, to use childspeak.

By far Yangon's most amazing sight is Shwedagon Pagoda. The temple complex began about 1,500 years ago, when legend has it eight of the Buddha's hairs were buried here.



The temple is built atop a small hill, and reached by walking up one of four elaborately covered stairways lined with merchants selling amulets, religious pictures, offerings for monks etc. At the top of the stairs is a vast marble floor with an enormous gold stupa at center (next post). But surrounding this main stupa are hundreds of smaller temples, all extremely intricate and very colorful. These serve a variety of purposes. Many were donated by past kings, some serve as schools for young monks and others are donated by groups from other parts of the country. In addition, there are seven small temples scattered around the circumference, one for each day of the week. The superstitious Burmese place great stress on which day of the week they were born, and they visit their birthday's temple as their first port of call at Shwedagon. Overall, the color scheme is reminiscent of the temples of Thailand, but the architecture is quite different, and reminds me more of Nepalese temples.

A few more random, secondary sights before we get to the main attraction, Shwedagon Pagoda. Inya Lake is a huge lake north of the city centre. Much of the lake is surrounded by old colonial mansions now occupied by the country's elite. Aung San Suu Kyi is under house arrest in one such house, while Ne Win, the dictator who originally imprisoned her and had been her archnemesis for decades before he recently died, lived across the lake. There's also a big golden dragon which looks great from afar, although up close its a slightly derelict restaurant made of painted cement.

Also pictured is Sule Pagoda, back in the center of the city. It's the oldest temple in Yangon, and popular with worshippers, although it's now somewhat marooned in a sea of traffic.

One of the largest reclining Buddhas in the world is lying in the outskirts of the city, in a ramshackle tin shed. It doesn't attract many visitors, but the head monk is very friendly and he keeps a list of temple benefactors on the wall, so you too can be a philanthropist for just a few bucks.

The area around the hotel is probably the best preserved colonial district in Asia. The British annexed southern Burma in 1852. Central Burma, ruled from Mandalay, was the historical heartland of Burma, but that didn't fall to the British for another thirty years. In the meantime, the British established their capital at what was previously a relatively small trading port, Yangon (and also changed its name to Rangoon). They then went about building all sorts of hotels, department stores, banks and trading companies, creating the colonial quarter that's pretty much unchanged today. The area was quite decrepit after the socialists took power in the '60's, but many of the buildings have been restored in the last decade and put to various commercial uses.



As an aside, those crazy generals decided last year to move the capital, since they were afraid of a US invasion. They consulted an astrologer to choose an auspicious time for the move, which was decreed to be around 2 am, at which time everyone who worked for the government embarked on a new adventure. Unfortunately the new capital, somewhere in the mountains of central Burma, wasn't close to completion, missing things like electricity and roads.





(We were in Yangon for two full days but I can't remember which areas we covered on which days, so the Yangon section won't be exactly chronological, hope that's ok.)

Our first day in Yangon started with a bland breakfast, then we met our tour guide (talking to me in front of the white car in the picture below). She was a very nice, very earnest woman whose husband had left her long ago, who's putting her daughter through medical school.



Yangon's only medium-sized for Asia, about four million people, but quite spread out, so you'll need a car. We started near the hotel, in Chinatown, which as usual is the main trading center where all the markets congregate. There's a very large indoor covered market with hundreds of stalls, but the whole area is one giant market, selling gold, clothes and electrical goods, none of which made compelling purchases. One weird thing we noticed is the outdoor dining areas, which you can see in the photo below. These are ubiquitious throughout Asia, but for some reason, the plastic stools that customers sat on as they ate their meals at roadside were tiny, only a few inches off the ground. It looked uncomfortable and made eating awkward, and I couldn't see any advantage to it.

94. Yangon

We were staying at the Strand Hotel, one of the four world famous hotels that kept European colonists in Old World comfort while they busied themselves with their Asian colonies (the others are the Oriental in Bangkok, Raffles in Singapore and the Eastern and Oriental in Penang). It was whites only from its founding in the 1890's until it was occupied by the Japanese during world war II. After that it was run by the Burmese socialists and left to fall apart. It was privatized about fifteen years ago and restored to its former glory (ex the whites only policy of course).



Our first experience with the hotel was more socialist mismanagement than former glory, as our car didn't show up to pick us up at the airport. But we managed to get to the hotel in a dilapidated taxi, and the hotel is quite beautiful. It's in the middle of Yangon's colonial era downtown, and is really stands out as a polished gem next to its neighbors, who have all seen better days. Service is excellent, the rooms very spacious (great ceiling height) and lots of colonial touches in decor that brings back the days of the Empire. Of course the period thing can be taken too far, as I could have done without the authenticity of no pool, gym or edible food. Overall: 7, (Room-8, Facilities-6, Service-8).

We planned our Burma trip to fit into the usual Christmas/New Year slowdown at work, and it's of course very convenient since it's right next door to Bangkok. But Thailand doesn't take Christmas off, and in fact Somchai had his final exams on Christmas day, which is crazy. Anyway, we took the very short Thai Airways flight into Yangon airport the following day (photo is aerial view of Yangon). The airport was surprisingly cavernous, since there are so few flights into Burma. The airport was pretty efficient as well, although the weirdness of this weird country was quickly apparent. The government is particularly weird when it comes to currency. When the dictators came to power, they abolished all the larger denomination currency notes in order to cripple the rich Burmese. Later, the uber superstitious generals decided to mold the currency to their lucky number, 9. So again they abolished the usual 10, 50, 100 kyat notes, and replaced them with 9, 45 and 90 kyat notes. So you better remember your 9 times multiplication tables if you're planning on doing a lot of wheeling and dealing in Burma. There's an official exchange rate of something like 25 kyat to the dollar, although nobody uses that since the market rate is over 1,000. And then as a foreigner, you have to exchange $300 at the airport for $300 in Foreign Exchange Certificates, which look like monopoly money. But these FEC's can be used just like regular currency wherever you go, so at any point in your trip, you have the choice of using FEC's or the 9-based local currency. And the dollar is universally accepted as well, so you've got three choices. But treat your dollars very well, since any dirt, crease, or god forbid rip or faded ink will cause them to be universally rejected.



After getting our monopoly money, we went through customs, where they only look for mobile phones. If you bring one, they take it and give you a receipt, then you can collect it at the airport when you leave. It must be a huge logistical pain to keep track of all this, but it apparently works. We did the smart thing and didn't bring our phones. The other function of the customs officials is to check out your brands, which is why I learned that the friendly customs lady uses the same shampoo as me.



One last airport observation, which will be unsurprising; Burma's advertising industry is not well developed. While we walked through the airport, we saw the usual ads all over the walls, and watched some video ads on the tv while we were waiting for our luggage. And we immediately noticed that there was only one woman who was in every single ad, as well as on the product labels. We would see her approximately one million times in our week of travels, and I have to believe that this overexposure diminishes her value as a spokesperson since she endorses every single thing you could possibly buy.