I was up about 5:30 on the morning of the 7th and walked to Bago's train station in the dark. The window selling tickets for the 6:30 train to Yangon opened at 6 and I eventually got a ticket for $2. The train wasn't overcrowded and I enjoyed the almost two hour ride 50 miles southwest to Yangon, despite the hard wooden benches and the rocking carriages. Most of the rice fields along the way were unplanted or just recently planted, and I saw men with teams of bullocks apparently leveling several plots, the men standing on boards pulled by the bullocks. We passed lots of simple, thatched shacks and a few forlorn little train stations. We only made two or three stops.
Yangon (formerly Rangoon) is a big city, with four or five million people (maybe 60 million in Burma as a whole) and it took a while to reach the city center. I walked from the train station to a guesthouse I had booked the night before near the Sule Pagoda in the heart of downtown. I had stayed in a different hotel in the same area in 1994. Yangon is much changed after 20 years, with skyscrapers now and lots of cars. I wouldn't be surprised if there are 100, or even more, times the cars now than 20 years ago. This was a Saturday morning, though, so the traffic was relatively light. I found a tea shop and had breakfast, the traditional Burmese breakfast of mohinga, a noodle and fish broth soup. I later ordered a rice, egg, peanut and onion dish that I liked much better, and then some greasy but delicious shrimp egg rolls. With tea with milk and sugar it all came to about a dollar and a half. The waiters were all very friendly. The only problem was the very tiny seats and the table too low for my knees to go beneath it.
After breakfast I walked around the city center, past the golden Sule Pagoda in the center of a traffic circle to the park fronting the colonial city hall. A Baptist Church and a huge and beautiful, but derelict, old colonial building with a clock tower, the former High Court, also front the park, with other colonial era buildings and a couple of shiny new glass and steel skyscrapers of about 25 or 30 stories. I walked down a wide street further to the east lined with more old and decrepit colonial era buildings and reached the waterfront road, with more colonial buildings including the 1901 Strand Hotel, now restored, air conditioned and expensive. I went inside and looked around. There are great old photos on the walls and a wonderful 1930 map of Rangoon. Rangoon was such a small city back then compared to now, though I've read that at the time it was the British Empire's third busiest port, which is saying something considering its rivals were not only London and Liverpool, but also Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore, Hong Kong and many other important ports. A woman was softly playing a Burmese xylophone in the Strand lobby. I sat in the deserted bar and read an International New York Times and an English language Burmese newspaper. Now that press censorship has been largely lifted, there are dozens of newspapers for sale on the streets. Oddly, quite a few have mastheads in English, but all the articles are in Burmese.
I spent quite a bit of time at the Strand and then checked out the ferry terminal nearby. I walked a few blocks to the old colonial secretariat, a full block of buildings now in great disrepair. I walked around the block and peered through a chain link fence at the grand old buildings. A guard told me it will be reconstructed and made into a museum. Aung San, Burma's independence hero, was assassinated here in 1947, about six months before independence in January 1948.
I took a long walk west to the jetties to check out a ferry to Pathein in the Irrawaddy Delta, but was told there no longer is a boat. There was a crowded boat getting ready for an all night journey to the town of Bogale in the delta. Various ferries were leaving for short journeys, as were some small boats taking passengers just across the wide Yangon River. The Yangon River is not part of the delta, but is connected to it by the Twante Canal. I watched the ferry traffic and the stevedores carrying hefty sacks onto several of the boats until almost dark, and then headed to 19th Street, where there are outdoor restaurants on the narrow street where you order meals of grilled food. You pick out little wooden spears of meat and vegetables and they grill them for you and bring them to your table. I ordered two of chicken, one of pork, two of broccoli and one of okra, and it was all very good.
My hotel provided a small but tasty Burmese breakfast, noodles and little fried dumplings, the next morning. I walked to a colorful street market and then to a large market building built in 1926 and now apparently devoted mainly to the tourist trade. I also stopped in at a synagogue built in the 1890's and still loving maintained by Yangon's now very small community of Baghdadi Jews. I met Moses Samuels, the guy in charge, and also met a guy from California, ethnically Chinese who fled Burma in 1973 when the government was making difficult for the Chinese. He had returned with his daughter for sightseeing and to build a library near Inle Lake.
I had a second breakfast about 11 at the tea house I had eaten at the day before and then took a taxi (which are relatively cheap here, $2 or $3 for trips) to Chaukhtatgyi Paya, another big, reclining Buddha, this one with a jeweled crown, in a large shed. Nearby is Ngahtatgyi Paya, with a large and beautiful seated Buddha with intricate woodwork behind it. I then walked through some old and new monastery buildings to the Aung San Museum, in the large wooden house he lived in from May 1945 until his death in July 1947. It contained very interesting photos of him, his wife and his three little children, including his youngest, Aung San Su Kyi, who was 2 when he was assassinated. On the streets of Yangon and elsewhere I have seen lots of posters and photos of her, and I have seen a few offices of her political party, the National League for Democracy. I've been told that two years ago her photo would not have been found in public places.
From the museum I walked to the magnificent Shwedagon Paya, a golden stupa on a hill. Covered stairways lead up to it on four sides, with vendors along the way. The hilltop is 190 feet above sea level and on top is a platform twelve acres in size, with the 322 foot high stupa sitting atop a plinth itself 21 feet high. More than 60 smaller stupas ring the main one and it is all quite a sight. Foreigners have to pay $8 to enter and short pants are not allowed. I always carry zip on extensions to my shorts, but before I could pull them out of my daypack, the ticket seller had pulled out a longyi, the Burmese skirt-like garment worn by men, for me to wear, It is a wide piece of circular cloth that you step into and then knot in the front. It is very comfortable. So I wore that for the three and a half hours I spent there.
I arrived about 4, with the late afternoon sun on the golden stupas and many tiered roofs. I walked around slowly the first time. The crowds were very large on that Sunday afternoon. The circular walkway is wide, with halls full of Buddhas on one side and the stupas on the other. At several spots below the stupas are altars for the days of the week, where people born on that day pray and make offerings, typically flowers and pouring water over the small Buddhas at the spots.
The stupa is claimed to be 2600 years old, and probably is at least a 1000 years old. Eight strands of Buddha's hair are said to be encased inside. The current version is said to date from 1769, after an earthquake. There are 13,000 plates of gold covering the upper portion of the stupa, and at the very top is a hti, an umbrella like pinnacle, of iron covered in gold. Its metal flag is said to contain 1100 diamonds totaling 228 carats and 1383 other stones. At the very top, above the iron flag, is an orb covered with 4351 diamonds totaling 1800 carats, with a large 76 carat diamond at the very top of the orb. Of course, you can't really see any of these jewels from more than 300 feet below. However, there is a hall with photos of them.
After dark, lights illuminate the whole gold assembly. The crowds were still heavy and I walked around another time and sat here and there to watch the friendly crowds. People were chanting in some of the halls, monks could be seen here and there, and there was still a lot of activity at the birthday posts. A lot of tourists showed up for sunset and just after dark. By about 7, an hour after dark, the crowds had diminished, but there were still lots of people up there. I walked around one last time and left about 7:30, taking a taxi back to the center of town. I easily could have stayed longer at that beautiful spot, but I was getting hungry.
The next morning I took another walk around the city center, very nice in the cool morning air. I walked through the central grassy square, called Mahabandoola Garden, with a 165 foot tall white obelisk in the center commemorating independence and interesting colonial buildings all around. I walked again to the Strand Hotel, stopping in at the Inland Water Transport Office, with a cavernous hall where tickets used to be sold by the old colonial company that I've read had a fleet of 600 ships plying Burma's inland waters. Most were sunk to prevent them being used by the invading Japanese. On the same block as the Strand is the former headquarters of the Bombay Burmah Teak Company, I think it was called, the British company that dominated Burma's teak trade. Its dispute with the King of Burma in Mandalay led to the Third Burmese War in 1885 and the deposition of the king, sent to exile in Ratnagiri on the coast of India south of Bombay. Now the building is the office of the national airline.
I read the newspapers at the Strand, and listened to a woman in the main lounge play first a Burmese xylophone, made of wood, and then a boat shaped Burmese harp, with sixteen strings. It was very interesting to watch her play the harp.
After another breakfast at a tea shop, I took a taxi through the very heavy Monday morning traffic to the National Museum, only to find it closed on Mondays. So I walked to the nearby tomb of the last Moghul Emperor of India, Bahadur Shah Zafar. He was exiled to Rangoon after the insurrection of 1857-1858 (variously called the Indian Mutiny or the Sepoy Rebellion or, by the Indians these days, the First War of Independence) and died in Rangoon in 1862. He was buried in an unmarked grave, but it was discovered in 1991. A tomb has been built and is covered with linens and fragrant flowers. Nearby are photos of visiting dignitaries, the Presidents of India and Pakistan and the Prime Minister of India.
I took a taxi back to the city center and later in the afternoon, about 4:30, walked to Mahabandoola Garden, filled with people at the end of the afternoon. There was even a small protest gathering on the street just outside the park. I walked around and then sat for a while just under the independence monument. A young guy from Rakhine (formerly known as Arakan), on Burma's west coast, struck up a conversation. He has just arrived in Yangon to study English, which he spoke very well.
My guesthouse in Yangon had very good Burmese breakfasts, and the next morning I had a double breakfast of small, crunchy, rice filled rolls as the woman seated across from me didn't like them. They did have a slight fish taste. I again walked to the Strand and read the newspapers and then walked to the old colonial post office. I've noticed quite a large number of people on the streets in Yangon and elsewhere wearing American flag themed shirts and even shorts. My favorite proclaimed, "Back to Back World War Champs." There are also quite a few British flag themed shirts, but none I've see featuring flags from France or Russia or China or anywhere else, with one unfortunate exception: I have seen a couple with the flag of Nazi Germany.
About 10:30 I took a taxi to the National Museum and ended up spending three and a half hours there. It has five large floors, with the pride of its collection being a 25 foot or so high throne used by the Kings of Burma to decide court cases. It came from the palace in Mandalay and dates from the early 1800's. It was taken to the museum in Calcutta after the 1885 conquest of Upper Burma and returned at independence by the British. Apparently, there were nine of these huge thrones, but the other eight were destroyed during World War II, when the royal palace in Mandalay was burned to the ground.
The museum collection is very interesting and well laid out and fairly well explained. There are many beautiful gold ornaments, furniture, and other items from the royal court. There are also some very interesting royal clothes, including a set worn by the last king and queen, with a photo of them wearing the clothes. On the top floor are 50 pairs of mannequins, each pair showing the male and female dress of an ethnic group. There are also musical instruments, weapons, tools, carts, and much else. The museum even has three or four chandeliers from a now torn down colonial building that housed the head of state after independence.
For lunch I stopped into a nearby restaurant known for its good Burmese food and had a very good lunch, fish, rice, tomato salad, and soup, with a German guy I had run into several times before, first in Mawlamyine. After lunch I walked to the Shwedagon Paya, approaching it at its southern entrance, with massive statues of guardian chinthes, combinations of lions and dragons. I didn't go back into the heart of Shwedagon, bur rather walked around it to see the views of it from the surrounding park and streets. After sunset, about 5:30, I took a taxi back to the city center.
Yangon (formerly Rangoon) is a big city, with four or five million people (maybe 60 million in Burma as a whole) and it took a while to reach the city center. I walked from the train station to a guesthouse I had booked the night before near the Sule Pagoda in the heart of downtown. I had stayed in a different hotel in the same area in 1994. Yangon is much changed after 20 years, with skyscrapers now and lots of cars. I wouldn't be surprised if there are 100, or even more, times the cars now than 20 years ago. This was a Saturday morning, though, so the traffic was relatively light. I found a tea shop and had breakfast, the traditional Burmese breakfast of mohinga, a noodle and fish broth soup. I later ordered a rice, egg, peanut and onion dish that I liked much better, and then some greasy but delicious shrimp egg rolls. With tea with milk and sugar it all came to about a dollar and a half. The waiters were all very friendly. The only problem was the very tiny seats and the table too low for my knees to go beneath it.
After breakfast I walked around the city center, past the golden Sule Pagoda in the center of a traffic circle to the park fronting the colonial city hall. A Baptist Church and a huge and beautiful, but derelict, old colonial building with a clock tower, the former High Court, also front the park, with other colonial era buildings and a couple of shiny new glass and steel skyscrapers of about 25 or 30 stories. I walked down a wide street further to the east lined with more old and decrepit colonial era buildings and reached the waterfront road, with more colonial buildings including the 1901 Strand Hotel, now restored, air conditioned and expensive. I went inside and looked around. There are great old photos on the walls and a wonderful 1930 map of Rangoon. Rangoon was such a small city back then compared to now, though I've read that at the time it was the British Empire's third busiest port, which is saying something considering its rivals were not only London and Liverpool, but also Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore, Hong Kong and many other important ports. A woman was softly playing a Burmese xylophone in the Strand lobby. I sat in the deserted bar and read an International New York Times and an English language Burmese newspaper. Now that press censorship has been largely lifted, there are dozens of newspapers for sale on the streets. Oddly, quite a few have mastheads in English, but all the articles are in Burmese.
I spent quite a bit of time at the Strand and then checked out the ferry terminal nearby. I walked a few blocks to the old colonial secretariat, a full block of buildings now in great disrepair. I walked around the block and peered through a chain link fence at the grand old buildings. A guard told me it will be reconstructed and made into a museum. Aung San, Burma's independence hero, was assassinated here in 1947, about six months before independence in January 1948.
I took a long walk west to the jetties to check out a ferry to Pathein in the Irrawaddy Delta, but was told there no longer is a boat. There was a crowded boat getting ready for an all night journey to the town of Bogale in the delta. Various ferries were leaving for short journeys, as were some small boats taking passengers just across the wide Yangon River. The Yangon River is not part of the delta, but is connected to it by the Twante Canal. I watched the ferry traffic and the stevedores carrying hefty sacks onto several of the boats until almost dark, and then headed to 19th Street, where there are outdoor restaurants on the narrow street where you order meals of grilled food. You pick out little wooden spears of meat and vegetables and they grill them for you and bring them to your table. I ordered two of chicken, one of pork, two of broccoli and one of okra, and it was all very good.
My hotel provided a small but tasty Burmese breakfast, noodles and little fried dumplings, the next morning. I walked to a colorful street market and then to a large market building built in 1926 and now apparently devoted mainly to the tourist trade. I also stopped in at a synagogue built in the 1890's and still loving maintained by Yangon's now very small community of Baghdadi Jews. I met Moses Samuels, the guy in charge, and also met a guy from California, ethnically Chinese who fled Burma in 1973 when the government was making difficult for the Chinese. He had returned with his daughter for sightseeing and to build a library near Inle Lake.
I had a second breakfast about 11 at the tea house I had eaten at the day before and then took a taxi (which are relatively cheap here, $2 or $3 for trips) to Chaukhtatgyi Paya, another big, reclining Buddha, this one with a jeweled crown, in a large shed. Nearby is Ngahtatgyi Paya, with a large and beautiful seated Buddha with intricate woodwork behind it. I then walked through some old and new monastery buildings to the Aung San Museum, in the large wooden house he lived in from May 1945 until his death in July 1947. It contained very interesting photos of him, his wife and his three little children, including his youngest, Aung San Su Kyi, who was 2 when he was assassinated. On the streets of Yangon and elsewhere I have seen lots of posters and photos of her, and I have seen a few offices of her political party, the National League for Democracy. I've been told that two years ago her photo would not have been found in public places.
From the museum I walked to the magnificent Shwedagon Paya, a golden stupa on a hill. Covered stairways lead up to it on four sides, with vendors along the way. The hilltop is 190 feet above sea level and on top is a platform twelve acres in size, with the 322 foot high stupa sitting atop a plinth itself 21 feet high. More than 60 smaller stupas ring the main one and it is all quite a sight. Foreigners have to pay $8 to enter and short pants are not allowed. I always carry zip on extensions to my shorts, but before I could pull them out of my daypack, the ticket seller had pulled out a longyi, the Burmese skirt-like garment worn by men, for me to wear, It is a wide piece of circular cloth that you step into and then knot in the front. It is very comfortable. So I wore that for the three and a half hours I spent there.
I arrived about 4, with the late afternoon sun on the golden stupas and many tiered roofs. I walked around slowly the first time. The crowds were very large on that Sunday afternoon. The circular walkway is wide, with halls full of Buddhas on one side and the stupas on the other. At several spots below the stupas are altars for the days of the week, where people born on that day pray and make offerings, typically flowers and pouring water over the small Buddhas at the spots.
The stupa is claimed to be 2600 years old, and probably is at least a 1000 years old. Eight strands of Buddha's hair are said to be encased inside. The current version is said to date from 1769, after an earthquake. There are 13,000 plates of gold covering the upper portion of the stupa, and at the very top is a hti, an umbrella like pinnacle, of iron covered in gold. Its metal flag is said to contain 1100 diamonds totaling 228 carats and 1383 other stones. At the very top, above the iron flag, is an orb covered with 4351 diamonds totaling 1800 carats, with a large 76 carat diamond at the very top of the orb. Of course, you can't really see any of these jewels from more than 300 feet below. However, there is a hall with photos of them.
After dark, lights illuminate the whole gold assembly. The crowds were still heavy and I walked around another time and sat here and there to watch the friendly crowds. People were chanting in some of the halls, monks could be seen here and there, and there was still a lot of activity at the birthday posts. A lot of tourists showed up for sunset and just after dark. By about 7, an hour after dark, the crowds had diminished, but there were still lots of people up there. I walked around one last time and left about 7:30, taking a taxi back to the center of town. I easily could have stayed longer at that beautiful spot, but I was getting hungry.
The next morning I took another walk around the city center, very nice in the cool morning air. I walked through the central grassy square, called Mahabandoola Garden, with a 165 foot tall white obelisk in the center commemorating independence and interesting colonial buildings all around. I walked again to the Strand Hotel, stopping in at the Inland Water Transport Office, with a cavernous hall where tickets used to be sold by the old colonial company that I've read had a fleet of 600 ships plying Burma's inland waters. Most were sunk to prevent them being used by the invading Japanese. On the same block as the Strand is the former headquarters of the Bombay Burmah Teak Company, I think it was called, the British company that dominated Burma's teak trade. Its dispute with the King of Burma in Mandalay led to the Third Burmese War in 1885 and the deposition of the king, sent to exile in Ratnagiri on the coast of India south of Bombay. Now the building is the office of the national airline.
I read the newspapers at the Strand, and listened to a woman in the main lounge play first a Burmese xylophone, made of wood, and then a boat shaped Burmese harp, with sixteen strings. It was very interesting to watch her play the harp.
After another breakfast at a tea shop, I took a taxi through the very heavy Monday morning traffic to the National Museum, only to find it closed on Mondays. So I walked to the nearby tomb of the last Moghul Emperor of India, Bahadur Shah Zafar. He was exiled to Rangoon after the insurrection of 1857-1858 (variously called the Indian Mutiny or the Sepoy Rebellion or, by the Indians these days, the First War of Independence) and died in Rangoon in 1862. He was buried in an unmarked grave, but it was discovered in 1991. A tomb has been built and is covered with linens and fragrant flowers. Nearby are photos of visiting dignitaries, the Presidents of India and Pakistan and the Prime Minister of India.
I took a taxi back to the city center and later in the afternoon, about 4:30, walked to Mahabandoola Garden, filled with people at the end of the afternoon. There was even a small protest gathering on the street just outside the park. I walked around and then sat for a while just under the independence monument. A young guy from Rakhine (formerly known as Arakan), on Burma's west coast, struck up a conversation. He has just arrived in Yangon to study English, which he spoke very well.
My guesthouse in Yangon had very good Burmese breakfasts, and the next morning I had a double breakfast of small, crunchy, rice filled rolls as the woman seated across from me didn't like them. They did have a slight fish taste. I again walked to the Strand and read the newspapers and then walked to the old colonial post office. I've noticed quite a large number of people on the streets in Yangon and elsewhere wearing American flag themed shirts and even shorts. My favorite proclaimed, "Back to Back World War Champs." There are also quite a few British flag themed shirts, but none I've see featuring flags from France or Russia or China or anywhere else, with one unfortunate exception: I have seen a couple with the flag of Nazi Germany.
About 10:30 I took a taxi to the National Museum and ended up spending three and a half hours there. It has five large floors, with the pride of its collection being a 25 foot or so high throne used by the Kings of Burma to decide court cases. It came from the palace in Mandalay and dates from the early 1800's. It was taken to the museum in Calcutta after the 1885 conquest of Upper Burma and returned at independence by the British. Apparently, there were nine of these huge thrones, but the other eight were destroyed during World War II, when the royal palace in Mandalay was burned to the ground.
The museum collection is very interesting and well laid out and fairly well explained. There are many beautiful gold ornaments, furniture, and other items from the royal court. There are also some very interesting royal clothes, including a set worn by the last king and queen, with a photo of them wearing the clothes. On the top floor are 50 pairs of mannequins, each pair showing the male and female dress of an ethnic group. There are also musical instruments, weapons, tools, carts, and much else. The museum even has three or four chandeliers from a now torn down colonial building that housed the head of state after independence.
For lunch I stopped into a nearby restaurant known for its good Burmese food and had a very good lunch, fish, rice, tomato salad, and soup, with a German guy I had run into several times before, first in Mawlamyine. After lunch I walked to the Shwedagon Paya, approaching it at its southern entrance, with massive statues of guardian chinthes, combinations of lions and dragons. I didn't go back into the heart of Shwedagon, bur rather walked around it to see the views of it from the surrounding park and streets. After sunset, about 5:30, I took a taxi back to the city center.
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