A walk downtown with Yangon Heritage Trust

Its sometimes amazing how quickly a week goes by. I've been in Yangon a week already and because I've been working I haven't really had a chance to get out and about much. My office is in the northern end of Yangon, which over the last 100 years or so has grown from a bustling city of half a million a people in 1945 to over 5 million estimated today. So in the scheme of things is in the relatively 'newer' part of the city - quite some distance away from the historical and colonial part of the city by the river.

So on Saturday morning I took the opportunity to take a guided walk with the Yangon Heritage Trust, an organisation that is seeking to highlight the importance of maintaining heritage buildings throughout Yangon. Much of their work is funded with through the guided tours that they offer.

Yangon Heritage Trust building looking over the old Supreme Court

The tour started in their little office in one of the historic buildings downtown. There are two tours that they office - one of the colonial sites, the other exploring some of the religious and more multicultural elements of the city. Yangon has a somewhat surprisingly multicultural history. During British colonial rule, approximately half of the 500,000 population of Yangon were from India. It was the third most important trading port in the British raj and therefore brought a lot of trading merchants and others to the city. It has a strong Armenian heritage - seen not only in some of the architecture of the old city (the Strand Hotel is one of three famous colonial luxury hotels built and run by the Armenian Sarkie brothers across south east Asia - the others being the Eastern and Orient in Penang and the Raffles in Singapore). But as we learnt in the tour, several Armenians were close advisors and translators to Burmese kings and rulers before the and around the time of the British empire.

The tour took us around the south part of the city where many of the British, Armenian and Indian buildings still line the streets. Many of them are run down, but still in use by various government agencies. It was interesting to hear about the different histories of the buildings and of the development of the city.

there are still some rickshaw drivers around downtown

this old building houses a nice restaurant and a shop selling Myanmar wares

residential building. Apparently Pablo Naruda lived here when he worked for the Chilean Embassy

These are just a few photos of some of the buildings that we saw along the way. It was just a small taste of the heritage of the downtown area which stretches for many blocks along the main river.
 
We passed the Secretariat Building - one of the largest official buildings in Yangon and the former government home of British Burma. The building is in the process of being restored, with plans for a small museum, some shops and galleries. This is the building where the independence leader Aung San - Burma's independence leader and father to Aung San Suu Kyi - was assassinated along with six of his cabinet ministers. It will be a great area once restored.  Meanwhile, inside was a great temporary exhibition on Burmese Photographers.

Burmese Gentleman

Burmese lady

view from the Secretariat building to St. Mary's cathedral

some of the old photos from the photo exhibition

The exhibit showcased a great treasure trove of old photographs of Myanmarese people.

The tour provided just a sample of the old buildings in downtown Yangon but was a good introduction to the city and its surrounds. After it finished I continued to walk around the city for a little while. Lots of people were out and about, eating in the local street markets which are dotted all over the downtown area.

street market outside the Regional Court

I wandered over to Maha Bandoola Garden - a nice little garden sanctuary where people were resting in the shade of the trees. In the middle of the garden is a large obelisk in commemoration of Burmese independence.

Mahabandoola Park

Around the obelisk are these dragons - with the Sule Pagoda in the background.

Maha Bandoola Garden

Sule Pagoda

The walk was a nice introduction to the city but it was getting super hot out so i decided to then head home and leave the rest of the city exploring to another day. Stay tuned for part two!