First Days in Yangon

It's always a bit hard to get a sense of a new place when you first arrive. Most countries now have decent airports, are well set up for tourists, and you have to come to expect some degree of traffic in any big city, even if you arrive on a weekend.

I've arrived at the beginning of the hot season. Which in the two days that I've been here its definitely been pretty warm, and a bit hazy. I'm staying in a very nice serviced apartment with amazing views over Shwedagon pagoda. Its a really pretty view and there are so many different views of the complex depending on the time of the day and the reflections of the sun.

It's nice that in principle, Yangon is a place you can walk around. Which is great, because being able to walk around my surroundings to get a sense of what is where is something I love to do when I arrive somewhere. But in practice - my first 'stroll' showed that it's a little bit more difficult here.

In my first afternoon I headed out to see how far it was to walk up to the 'megamall' - into he map, around 30 minutes from where I'm staying. The problem was that it was along a busy traffic thoroughfare and the presence of the side walk was really inconsistent. In some places it just disappeared meaning I would have to stray onto the main road - in others signposts and electricity poles blocked the path. But I made it and despite the heat, it wasn't too bad.

navigating the paths

And some of the buildings along the way were really interesting - once you had a chance find a space to stop and look up.

an old, but somewhat pretty building

This is a monastery just down the road from where I'm staying

a difficult to cross intersections - not catering to pedestrians

The mall is in one of the newer buildings in the city. It had a bit of a strange mix of some expensive western style shops, a supermarket, and some smaller stores with what looked like cheap Chinese imported goods.

one of the newest malls in Yangon is next to the Melia hotel

The nice thing about walking, is that you also run into small interesting sites of life around you. This little pagoda - with some of the local boys playing - was hidden on the highway on my way back home.



Its been a nice introduction to Yangon.