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Published: April 2nd 2013
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Our first 12 hours in Yangon have been delightfully overwhelming, a feast for the senses and almost impossible to describe in just a few words. The city reminds me of Delhi, extremely poor, dirty, noisy and yet interspersed with magnificent golden pagodas, decaying colonial buildings, vibrant street life and above all incredibly friendly and polite people, everywhere we have been. We have only seen a few other tourists and clearly tourism and westernisation have yet to take hold, but construction works on new roads and hotels has started - a few months ago foreign cars were allowed to be imported- things will change soon.
Even Eve has been completely taken in by the sights and sounds of the city, especially the golden pagodas, stupas and the huge buddha statues around every corner. Everywhere we go she is the centre of attention but not in a bothersome way, the locals just seem to want to say hello to her and to photograph her - she was even asked by a monk to pose with him for a photo !
Yesterday we visited the Shwedagon Pagoda (Pictured - see Eve and Rob?) it was Sunday and was throbbing with locals, but we felt completely safe and not at all unwelcome at this religious site, indeed the locals seemed delighted and excited about our presence. We stayed until after sunset when the lights came on and the gold really glowed. We all find the buddhist religion terribly complicated to understand, from the difference between stupas and pagodas (the former is solid and the latter hollow) to the different buddha poses - so we can only admire and respect it. Likewise with the language - we've learned to say 'min-ga-la-ba' meaning hello - but I dont think we will ever fathom out the writing !
I asked Eve to come up with her words to describe our first hours in Burma and these are : noisy, dirty, poor, magnificent golden stupas, friendly, smiley, a tower of gold, vibrant, happy, super hot!
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Abi
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First few hours in Yangon
I really liked your photo and message can't wait till your next message and photo. It looks like a great place to be. Are you enjoying it there?The Golden temples look really pretty. Burma looks a little bit like China. Love from Abi xxxxxxx