Your Perfect Day in Yangon

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Your Perfect Day in Yangon

Hugues Herrmann
December 24, 2020

Yangon is a city of crumbling colonial buildings and golden pagodas. Here is the perfect plan to spend your day.

Wake up early to be able to walk while it is not too hot. If your hotel’s breakfast sounds mediocre, go to Burma Bistro to enjoy a traditional Burmese meal in a renovated historic building. You are right in the downtown, the historic part of the city. Begin by going to the Sule Pagoda, built 2500 years ago. Head south on Sule Road until the river and turn on your left side. Some of the colonial buildings you see are abandoned, which you can guess by the vegetation growing on them. The one today home to the ultra-luxury Rosewood hotel was the home of the Burmese Socialist Party in the 60s. Lost yourself in the many tiny streets around and then head to Pansodan Road to admire the building today home to the Myanmar Port Authority built in 1926.

If you feel like taking a break, the Victorian-style Strand Hotel opened in 1901 is next door. Your coffee there will be served with a macaron. Ask to a hotel employee to show you the antique shops located inside.

Strand Hotel (picture from GCP Hospitality)

By this time you may be hungry for lunch. In the closed by Indian quarter and Chinatown you can find many restaurants serving food from these two countries. For Burmese food, head to the Karaweik Palace five minutes away by taxi, as much for the deco as for the food.

Karaweik Palace (picture from karaweikpalace.com)

Spend the hottest times of the day at the Bogyoke Market, an other building from the British time, where you will enjoy some shadows. Many shops selling gems are managed by Myanmar-Chinese, hence why their name is written in ideograms and not in Burmese script. You also have an interesting choice of old pieces, timbers and other antiques.

Bogyoke Market (picture from justgola.com)

Around 4 pm head to the Shwedagon Pagoda. you probably already have seen this giant temple in your taxi from the airport to the hotel. Take the time to contemplate the amount of status and stay until sunset where the golden color of the complex is getting the prettiest.

Yangon may have lost its status of capital city after the Myanmar military junta built a new city for this purpose out of nowhere, but it certainly kept its interests.

Article Tags: Asia, Myanmar, Yangon

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Your Perfect Day in Yangon

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