myanmar

This is my first Vlog!!!!!! Tres exciting! In contains 3 ‘off the beaten path – Sunni tips’ for Yangon. I loved Yangon, and you can read about my first moments here. Your options for this blog: read the tips or just scroll down and press ‘play’. :))

 

 

Everyone Yangonian it seems eats off and on the streets. It’s quite simply fabulous. And I’ve never seen a city eat together as much as I have in Yangon. Everyone, everywhere. Little plastic kids tables, dirt, stench and fabulously fresh, delicious food.

 

And surprisingly, there is something for everyone (even people like me!). You’re sure to find anything from chunks of boiling frothing tongues on sticks, to crispy circadian, to tasty soupy-salads.

 

 

Chinatown in Yangon is unlike Chinatown I’ve seen before. In Australia, the States and parts of Europe, China towns are mostly decorated red lanterned, ornate wooden carved bliss. Here its cram packed full of people, aged high apartments and life. Food, stalls, bent over vendors, bikes, carts, rubbish and smiles for curly haired foreigners.

 

It’s a street photographers’ wet dream. And a people-curious persons’ muse. I loved singing out ‘Megellaba – sheng’ as I passed the wide gazes, and in return being given bigger smiles, giggles and appreciative ‘Hellos’.

 

 

 

One of the most captivating temples I have seen. Scintillating in its glittering gold with matching sparkling white and halcyon stupas surrounding its base.

 

Totally mesmerising in its aurulent, twinkling beauty!

 

And it’s OLD. The story goes that two dudes (or merchants if you prefer) met Gautama Buddha whilst he was travelling in ‘seven directions’ about 600 BC. As the helpful blokes that they were, they offered him honey cakes and other goodies. Buddha was so thankful he gave them 8 strands of his hair as a blessing. They returned back to Yangon and the King at the time thought this was great. He enshrined the hairs along with relics of three Buddhas before him. Because it contained relics of the four Buddhas who had attained Enlightenment, it was known as the Reliquary of the Four. It’s called ‘Shwedagon Pagoda’ or the golden pagoda, for obvious reasons.

 

And every dynasty since has maintained it, raising the ground underneath it higher and higher, ensuring all for miles can catch a glimpse of its majesty.

 

It is a shimmering, bell ringing wonderland in the heart of Yangon. A must see.

Wild lunch views

I remember the exact moment. I was sitting on a tiny pink plastic stool under some make shift umbrella plastic. It was 11.45am. I felt my legs dribbling, matching the matted hair stench from my scalp. I didn’t want to touch my bloated face with my hands, lest the dirt get smeared more fully across my body. I couldn’t resist.

Heaven.

I picked up my metal spoon and took in a little of the balmy coloured liquid. My eyes flicked open. 

Ingredients for the ‘salad’.

This is called a ‘samosa salad’. It was more of a soup than a salad, but the combinations of salty, crunchy, sour and heat were truly remarkable.

Sugar cane machines & tobacco

More than remarkable. Bliss. Bliss on a plastic toy chair surrounded by sugar cane juice motors, loud conversations, wide eyed locals staring at the crazy haired white girl, wafts of road water odour and red splashed dirt.

I avoided at all costs looking behind me. I didn’t want the hanging carcass of another animal to disrupt this moment. Because it was this moment, this moment, I fell in love in Yangon.

A street for everyone and everything!

Yangon kinda hits you. Like a wet fish slap across your back. The chaotic roads barely have any sense of order. This is not helped by the fact that the cars (unlike neighbouring countries of Thailand and India) drive on the right side of the road. Now this in itself is not a problem. The problem is that the driving wheels are situated on the right side of the vehicle. 

A garbage truck

The primary manufacturer of cars in Asia is Japan and the majority of these cars are RHD vehicles. There have been discussions of only allowing LHD vehicles to be imported, but a high ranking police officer says that it is the skill and safe practises of the motorist, rather than the driving side the wheel is on that is the problem of accidents. 

This food stall is coming fully onto the road.

Add to this pedestrians coming out into roads (the pavements are either non-existent, or broken messes of drains and precarious slabs of concrete), bikes and other wheeled contraptions, random stray dogs, and food stalls. Accidents happen all the time, and I saw evidence of this the other day when a car pulled out and hit a motorbike directly in front of me. 

The peace of the Buddha feels much needed here!

More than cute. Everyone uses them.

What I did find both interesting and unique to Yangon is the sheer numbers of food stalls taking up substantial portions of any and all roads. And everyone eating or drinking at these stalls, on children’s plastic chairs with teapots. It couldn’t be more cute. The freshness of the produce, the succulent, ready to eat fruit, and the betel leaf. Almost as common as the motorbike is a betel leaf stall. The fresh green leaves are spread out, white paste smeared on top, tobacco, herbs and I’m unsure what else. They are meticulously rolled up into thumb nail sized squares and popped into mouths quicker that a fly chasing excrement. 

His teeth are pretty good in comparison to what else I saw!

Bloodied mouths follow, the betel juice dribbling out of smiles and spat… well everywhere. One really has to be careful walking the streets of Yangon! Really careful. The spray of crimson polished every sidewalk, bus and building. The betel leaf is addictive. The consequences of this over time mean crumbling specks of white and black encased in red stained lips.

In my next post I will discuss some of Yangon’s scintillating sights.

 

Shrine of remembrance for Aung Sun assassinated in 1947