Yangon Explorer - Sule Pagoda (Aug 2015)

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Friday, 7th August 2015

Myanmar became the 21st country I visited following our five-day vacation in Yangon, the former capital of the country. I flew off in the evening of 7th August from Singapore to meet H who had arrived at Yangon an hour earlier. Like a typical developing country, the streets along the city centre were dimly litted and there were a couple of rats running around along the side alleys from time to time.

After settling down at our hotel at Clover City Centre, we decided to explore the immediate neighbourhood on foot. KFC had just opened its first restaurant at Yangon along the busy Bo Gyoke Road - some sort of the CBD where it was littered with skyscrapers like the Sakura Tower and the Shangri-La Hotel.

We had Korean Fried Chicken for dinner - a rather uninspiring meal even though the service was top-notched with enthusiastic wait-staffs. Chinatown was about 20 minutes by foot from where we stayed and we decided to leave it till another day as we were both tired from our flights.

Nevertheless, after drowning our dinner with some Myanmar Beer, we managed to make our way to the 2,500 year-old Sule Pagoda which was right in the heart of the city centre. The temple was brightly litted that served to bring out its shimmering golden façade. It was late at night and there were very few tourists as far as we could see. However, we found the streets of Yangon to be really safe for walking.

The local people went about with their routines and the coffee shops were crowded with customers on a Friday evening. Tired, we left the rest of our sight-seeing plans to the following day as we slowly made our way back to our hotel.

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