The first thing that struck me was just how run down the whole city was in comparison to Mandalay, which had brand new roads, buildings, hotels everywhere. Having seen the poorest families living in bamboo huts on the water in Inle, you'd expect Yangon to feel more luxurious and prospering but coming back made me realise just how much pride the families in Inle took in their homes. They weren't living in squalor. Far from it. And above all they genuinely seemed really happy. Walking through Chinatown, Little India and retracing our steps through the city's downtown streets, Yangon is much grottier, and impersonal. But perhaps that's a given in any city? Weirdly the one spotless buildings outside the Shwedagon Pagoda, are the out-of-place red brick churches. We went inside St Mary's Catholic Church set up by the Dutch Janzen family in the late 1800s. Inside it feels like a Lego church, perfect brickwork and bright colours everywhere, the stain glass windows having been brought in recently from Italy to replace those broken by the earthquake.
Walking inside that church made me feel so happy. Quite unexpected, not being religious myself, but it felt so familiar. Saying that, I also felt a little uneasy - how is it that people's homes are falling apart but the British churches are still pristine? This discomfort was eased by seeing the old British railway which still runs throughout the whole city and the whole country. It seems amazing that a railway line can still be standing and functioning over a hundred years later.
It makes sense that the British Empire feels most present in Yangon being where they were originally based. Another British remnant is the Scott Market, an indoor market selling everything from jewellery to lace, jade to lacquerware, and a whole lot of souvenirs...
Having heard so much about the institution of the Indo-Burmese tea shop (usually small road side affairs with mini chairs and tables all equipped with teapots and snacks), we stopped in at one that we were told would be less likely to upset our stomachs... The place is an open aired shop front with tables of men taking a break from work with a cup of extremely sweet tea (the choices may be 'less sweet', 'sweet' or 'more sweet' but they're all, I assure you, very sweet. In the older days this would be where people would gather to talk politics, one eye on the tea and one on the potential govt spies... Quite accidentally, we ended up doing exactly that, although without the spies... I think... The hilarious part was the attempt at being uptodate western wise by providing bizarre cheese sandwiches...
To celebrate a great 2 weeks, we tucked in to Thai chicken, fish cakes and the spiciest fecking papaya salad I've ever tasted. Turns out the red tomatoes were chillies. Turns out the green beans were chillies too. Mouth. On. Fire.
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