When giving us a city map, the man on reception at Beautyland II, our well-located budget hotel, recommended the BBQ restaurants on 19th Street for dinner. That sounded like us, so off we went. It was also a great opportunity to see just a little of our new location. The blocks between the numbered streets are short, probably only 300 metres or so, but occasionally a named street pops up between the numbered ones so it was about 16 blocks between our hotel on 33rd Street and the restaurants. Street lighting was a bit hit-and-miss, the pavements are rough and have various obstacles (stalls, people, stones, broken sections with raised concrete etc.), and the huge gutters mean big drops to the street, so it was fairly slow going.
Once we arrived on 19th Street, which is like a miniature Jalan Alor in Kuala Lumpur, we quickly picked a restaurant and sat down to eat. There was a lots of meat in the fridge that we didn't recognise and we were fairly conservative in our choices this time. For the first time on this trip we had local children come up to the table and ask for food.
We had a couple of brief power cuts at the hotel that evening, our first since arriving. We'd expected there to be more disrupted power supplies than we actually experienced after reading about government imposed outages and issues with supply. Aome of our hotels proudly advertised 24-hour power, so any fixed improvement must be fairly recent.
At breakfast the following day we met a couple from Hastings/Napier who have been working in Yangon as missionaries on and off for the past three or so years. As the conversion aspect of their work is a little sensitive, they refer to themselves as the 'M's'. Their work also involves setting up schools and supporting other social initiatives. We talked a bit about some of the current big issues for Myanmar, including Aung San Suu Kyi (who they confirmed is hugely popular amongst the people), education and child trafficking. They think a gang has started up as a few children from poorer families have disappeared recently. It ensured we kept a close eye on ours.
We caught a taxi (no tuk tuks here) to Yangon Bakehouse, a cafe which provides disadvantaged women with training in food preparation, cooking and service, then assists with finding employment. The cafe is in a non-descript mall, but offers great coffee and very good food.
From there we walked to Shwedagon Temple, one of the most important active Buddhist temples in Myanmar. In part at least because the golden stupa is believed to be constructed around eight strands of hair from Buddha. It is certainly impressive, but we must have been spoilt by all the other amazing temples we've seen in the past few weeks as it didn't seem to us to be the one thing not to be missed in Myanmar as described in the Lonely Planet.
We grabbed a quick lunch at a restaurant just outside the temple grounds. We were given a mystery soup, which seemed to be onion broth with garlic, coriander and mushroom. Yum!! The whole meal was tasty and incredibly cheap (about $4 NZ for the four of us).
The nearby People's Park is a pleasant big green leafy space where local couples go to canoodle. We found the playground and played there for a while before Eleanor and Leo decided they preferred the exercise machines. We also tried out the two swing bridges strung between wooden towers high in the trees which was fun for us all.
Our final visit for the day was the Bogyoke market for a spot of shopping. It is a covered tourist market with a rabbit warren of stalls selling all sorts of things from brightly coloured fabric to gems and jade to clothing to lackerware and other wooden products. We arrived a little late in the day as everything was starting to close at 5pm.
Our last day in Yangon really felt like the end of our trip, even though we still had a few hours in Kuala Lumpur and a night with my brother Richard on the way home. It was hot and sunny, probably around 32-33 degrees, the warmest day we'd had in a while.
We spent the morning visiting Botataung Paya, a considerably quieter temple than Shwedagon. The kids loved walking through the zig-zag maze with golden walls inside the stupa (we did it twice at their request), Which houses a shrine to a sacred relic, a strand of Buddha's hair.
We walked past the British Embassy, which has current notices outside referring to the city as Rangoon, the British name for it during the colonial period. It would be interesting to know why. After a quick stop at the attractive brick colonial post office to post a few cards, it was time for lunch.
We had lunch at Be Le, a huge Chinese restaurant on the banks of the Yangon River. The menu was extensive, including a dish of pigs intestines, heart and throat, shark fin soup and an entire section of eel options. We went with chicken stirfry.
In the afternoon we stopped at the playground at Mahabandoola Gardens from where we could admire colonial buildings like the High Court and City Hall. The entire city has an air of faded glory (in some cases, very faint indeed!), which prompted various conversations with the kids about how it must have been great once.
We popped into the ornate Sule Paya, where Eleanor and Leo befriended a group of monks and sat chatting with them until it was time to leave. This was our last and easily the shortest temple visit of the trip. It is definitely possible to become a little templed-out!
That night we popped to a roof-top restaurant for a quick drink while looking out over the city. We could see where we'd walked the previous day. A long way!
We chose LinkAge for dinner that night, a training restaurant for street children. Some are shockingly young, one waiter looked no more than nine or 10, but they seem very happy and are obviously learning skills that will enable their future employment. It must be better than being on the streets. The service was good and the food excellent. Even attempting to imagine how difficult life on the streets of Yangon must be for a child reminded us of how lucky we are.
We were up early the next day for our flight to KL. The first leg of our homeward journey. Yangon airport isn't currently particularly exciting or well-furnished with food or shopping options, but a big extension is taking place, so they are obviously increasing their capacity for visitors. Another small sign of Myanmar is developing and opening up maybe.
Shwedagon
Family work out
Inside Botataung Paya
Posting cards
LinkAge
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