Around Yangon

What did I see in Yangon in the first 48 hours? The restaurant on the second floor and my room on the tenth floor of a fourteen storey hotel called Panda, the outside of a supermarket that I cross during my 10 minute walk from the hotel to my office building; and my office. Oh yes, and shelves with bright pink and orange flower vases, plastic flowers and some cosmetics. On the ground floor of the building in which we have our office there is a departmental store. The only way to get to the lift or staircase that takes me to the fifth floor office is through this department store – the lift is right behind the self with the colourful vases.

I did go to a restaurant last night with some of my colleagues for some delicious food. It was, honestly, one of the most difficult food decisions ever. The restaurant served Thai, Chinese, Korean and Burmese food! I looked around at what was being served at other tables, and it all looked and smelled too delicious. I finally settled for Korean rice noodle salad with grilled sesame chicken – it was yummy.

When I left work at eight this evening I decided to spend some time walking around the city. After all, the map that I looked at in the hotel had, what I could imagine as a beautiful, river side stretch with restaurants and floating boats; half a dozen pagoda's scattered around the city, a China town, some local markets and a palace. I asked a few colleagues if anyone was interested in coming for a walk and found three volunteers. We walked into downtown Yangon – and one could suddenly sense the crowds. Bustling street markets with tiny chairs and tables all along the footpaths. And I mean tiny as in the kind of table and chairs we buy for kids. These ones are made of plastic – most are red, but some blue and green too. Yangon is dotted with open street restaurants with people - men and women, young, not so young and old – sitting on these tiny chairs, huddled around an aluminum kettle with steaming hot tea that sits on the little plastic table in the centre; talking about their day, and smoking the local green tobacco cigar. Local passenger trucks, buses and old battered Toyota Corolla, Nissan and Honda taxis brush past these people on one side. Across the road are tens of shops. Every now and then, street vendors selling Chinese jeans, torches, packet food and cosmetics intersperse with the tables and chairs of the restaurants. We walked around for an hour – downtown is downtown – tall buildings, neon lights, Bollywood and Korean movie posters, a few cinemas, some supermarkets and the beautiful Sule Pagoda at the end of the main road. There seems to be enough to explore and so I think I will take my map and do some touristy things tomorrow.