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Published: March 20th 2015
We landed in Yangon around 6pm after a quick flight from Bangkok. The city of Yangon was a lot bigger than we expected. Taking in our surroundings in our cab we commented on how modern/built up it was, it was pretty dark by that point so our views were quite limited. One thing we did notice however was that most of the men and boys wore traditional long wrapped bottoms (like skirts). We later found out these are called 'paso' for the men whilst the women wear 'longi'. Although similar in design the pattern for men was mainly simple chequed patterns while women wear far more intricately patterned bright and colourful designs.
Our hostel was in a small street in chinatown. Most places close by 10pm and as we didn't know much about the surrounding area we decided to leave the exploring till the following morning. We did pop out to look for an ATM close by so we could buy water but turned back round when we had to keep jumping to avoid stepping on the rats running about!
The next day we didn't really have much planned other than getting money, water and a map (in that
order precisely). The main street we had walked down the night before had been transformed from the abandoned, rat and litter adorned street to a chaotic cluttered scene with the faint but clear smells of the rubbish dumps that remained mixed with the food market stalls that took place. When walking down one of the main streets, one thing we noticed immediately was the mix in race, heritage and religion here. There were clear groups of Chinese, Indian and local Malaysian men and women. One minute we saw a temple or a buddist shrine and the next a mosque or hindu temple. This was more diverse than we expected.
We observed many locals going about their daily lives from the commuters packed into buses like sardines to the hundreds of street sellers. What we came to realise was that each street seller sold a specific item. From fruit to offal on a stick to everyday items like toothpaste and bathroom toiletries to street stalls with only a handful of mobile phones whilst others just sold belts or leather shoes. These streets were packed with everything you need as long as you could navigate yourself accordingly. This reminded us of
traditional markets back home that still exist in places, but for us, have been overshadowed by convenience stores, supermarkets and to some extent even poundshops.
It took us a little to get going for food here. With the mixture of sweet and indistinguishable smells it was a bit hard to identify what was what. Plus we're not that adventurous when it comes to certain foods (yet!). The market stalls consisted of noodles, tofu & barbecued meats what looked like liver amongst various animal parts we are not used to eating. We did see some edible looking meats but had no idea how long it may have been sat there for so were hesitant in trying it. We did however spot someone selling diced pineapple, this was definitely our thing. One practice they do here with fruit (as in Central America) is put seasoning on it. Despite asking for none we still ended up with the left over salty residue from the previous customers order via the bowl used to transfer to the bag. Great. We were hungry so ate it fairly quickly trying our best to ignore the seasoning. For food in the evening we opted for a small
About to sample some local grub
By local we mean "order something we're familiar with"local food haunt on the same street as our hostel. The food here was much better, we ate sweet and sour noodles and a vermicelli noodle dish with a big fried egg on top. We ordered this a lot here.
One thing that took us by surprise in Burma was the amount of hocking and spitting. It was mainly the men who did this after chewing this red like substance, leaving their teeth stained red. We later understood that they are actually chewing betel nut which is a stimulant, it's been mixed with a chalky substance (crushed limestone) and then wrapped in a green leaf. After chewing as much as they can chew they spit out the excess. Men did this everywhere. Often we had to watch where we stepped to avoid the fresh thick red spit. P had to distract herself at the sight and sound of it as for her this was a bit too much to take in and took a while to get used to. On occasions we thought it may have been raining, but no there was no rain just beetle-nut and phlegm from the ever so thoughtful people situated on the balcony's above.
Nice, yes this was really happening.
We mainly walked around our immediate area exploring the many small side streets, walking towards the river expecting a calm riverfront to walk along but found quite the opposite. The port was very busy with boats being loaded with cargo and bikes zipping past down the narrow road. The air was hot & dusty and littered with rubbish making this walk somewhat difficult.
The more we walked the more we noticed we were getting a lot of stares with people looking more so at Chris and then saying something in Burmese and laughing among themselves. Yes we were certainly providing the locals with some entertainment. It was all friendly and we never felt any animosity. Plus for them, they live in a culture whereby whiter skin is seen as more beautiful than darker skin and they go to many lengths to bleach their skin and hide from the sun. In fact as you walk the streets you see many locals who cover their faces in what we later understood to be 'tanaka' a yellow chalky like substance. This is mainly worn by women and children to beautify their skin and secondly
to protect their faces from the sun. So to see a black man, roaming the streets in a vest not covered from the sun must have been pretty unusual for them.
The hostel we stayed at was overpriced by south east asian standards but pretty standard for Myanmar (Burma). We had been warned by other guests and online reviews about the breakfast here but we quickly brushed this aside when we had breakfast the first morning. The breakfast was good; eggs, toast, jam, banana and sweetcorn. That is until the second morning. We were served a traditional breakfast which was basically a very light mini twisted pastry (like doughnuts) dipped in this salty yellow sauce (similar to custard in texture) and topped with some crunchy nut like food. Chris ate the 'doughnuts' untouched by the yellow sauce on both plates and then we pushed everything else to one side of the plate to make it look like we'd actually ate some. Thus putting our childhood techniques to some good use.
On the second day we decided to visit the Shwedagon Pagoda. As public transport was too difficult for us to navigate and taxi's (the main form
of transport for travellers) too expensive, we decided to walk it and did so in the morning to avoid the sweltering heat. To P's dismay we appeared to be the only ones making this journey on foot as many taxi's with westerners within passed us by. P felt really ill (which we think may have been set off by the malaria pills taken without any food) and so all the delightful smells of food mixed with the strong smell of sewage and litter made her feel very nauseous. By mid afternoon this had passed and she was able to walk continuously without stopping with the urgent need to throw up.
The 2,500 year old Shwedagon pagoda is the main temple in Yangon where Buddhists come to pray. This pagoda is situated above a number of steps and holds many Buddhas that surround the 110m golden stupa. The entrance fee was quite highly priced considering but we paid the fee nevertheless to have a walk around. We stared in awe at the golden pagoda for a moment but found the rest of the complex was kind of wasted on us as non Buddhists. Added to this, the tiles were
too hot causing us to tiptoe from one spot to another so after some pictures we quickly left.
It took us around an hour to get back and we were pretty hungry by this point. We didn't see a lot of restaurants where we stayed just little side street vendors mainly. We ended up (again) at the restaurant on the end of the street we were staying. Food wasn't too bad although the curry was not what we were used to. There is a lot less sauce involved which for us is what characterises a curry; not here.
For our journey to our next destination - Bagan: We arrived at the bus station by taxi and it paid to have the taxi driver know exactly what bus we were taking. This so called bus station was more like a confusing 'town' full of buses and bus stops.
We were taking the 8 hour (non tourist/cheaper option) night bus to Bagan. As any backpacker knows this wasn't going to be a comfortable journey at all. First of all our driver played an endless dvd at full volume mainly playing Burmese music, added to this
Traditional Myanmar breakfast
Chris ate the mini donut things we had a young guy opposite us playing music from his phone. All we wanted to do was sleep. This is a night bus right!?
After a few resting stops for food/bathroom breaks and a banging headache we finally reached Bagan at 4am.
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