myanmar day 1 and 2

Back in 2014, I had the opportunity to visit India while studying at University to do fieldwork on Poverty Alleviation and Micro-financing strategies.  While I had never imagined prior to that moment that I would ever visit India, it left a good impression on me.  Basically, I imagined myself someday returning to India, or visiting any of it's neighboring countries (preferably the northeast bordering countries).  Upon my return, I also found myself a bit fascinated with Indian cuisine.  Any or most curry lovers would probably have felt the same.

One day in Hawaii, I noticed a restaurant on King Street named "Dagon", specializing in Burmese cuisine.  At the time, I honestly didn't know much about Burma (Myanmar).  You would often here a few bits and pieces about Myanmar in the news, and I was also familiar with Aung San Suu Kyi from the song "Unplayed Piano" by Damien Rice and Lisa Hanigan.  More importantly, at least for me, I knew it bordered both India and Thailand.  Therefore, surely their food must be good, I thought.  It was from that moment that I decided, I would like to visit Myanmar someday to experience the food.

Fast forward to 2016, and I honestly wouldn't have imagined that I would actually visit Myanmar.  But in February, on a whim, I decided to travel to Myanmar with fellow Hawaii and Iizuka ALT, Erik. We booked our flights and booked our hotels and basically forgot about the trip until April 30th came knocking.


April 30, 2016

Although in my head, all journeys begin from Fukuoka Airport or Hakata Station, they really begin from Iizuka when public transit is the means of transportation.  So we left Iizuka just after Saturday midday headed for Yangon, the largest city in Myanmar.

From Fukuoka, we flew to Hong Kong for a short layover, then directly to Yangon.
The travel time was relatively short, but we did arrive in Yangon at around 11:30 pm.  We breezed through Immigration and Customs and faced our first problem of the trip, exchanging money into the local currency, Kyat.

There was only one money exchange booth open, so we really had no choice.  The good thing about Kyat is the rate is close to $1.00 - 1,000 Kyat.  Unfortunately however, we had read online prior to the trip, that money changers prefer new and crisp USD.  We couldn't believe that in 2016 this would still hold true, but we were wrong.  Many of our bills were rejected as the banks in Myanmar really do want pristine USD.  It was a bit frustrating, as this rejection of our USD continued throughout the trip, but we managed to have just enough money to exchange to be more than comfortable.

The crazy thing about Kyat is, as far as we're concerned, the largest bill is 5,000 Kyat (~ $5.00).  At this money changer however, the largest bill they had was 1,000 Kyat.  At the rate of $1.000 - 1,0000 Kyat, by exchanging $300 USD, we were left with 300 individual 1,000 Kyat bills.  As you could imagine, there was a slight disconcerting feeling having to carry this many bills.

Want to feel rich? Exchange USD for Kyat.

We proceeded outside and true to the weather forecast, it was hot.  We hopped into a taxi, told him our destination and off we went. To my surprise, the taxi driver was incredibly friendly.  He seemed to be incredibly proud of his country and continued to both talk about and show us pictures of famous sights in Myanmar on his smartphone that was better than my own (more on the smartphones later).  The drive was dark, but from what I could see, Myanmar appeared to be quite nice.

I couldn't tell you what time we had arrived at our hotel, but it was definitely after midnight.  Checking in was also a bit of a hassle as we tried to, at first, pay in USD.  Again, much of our USD was deemed unacceptable so we were forced to partially pay in Kyat the following morning.  We went up to our room and it was spacious and comfortable.  Erik was keen on finding a place where we could watch the Premiere League match between Manchester United and Leicester City and to our surprise, we discovered that the TV in our room had access to a sports channel.  That night we showered and fell asleep far too late as we watched the early bits of a La Liga match featuring Barcelona.


May 1, 2016

The sun rose early and light peeked through the curtains.  We couldn't have been asked to wake up too early, but it was around 8:00 when we got our day started.

The view from the hotel room.  It looked dauntingly hot oustide.

Our hotel had a fitness center, so we began our morning with a little workout.  The fitness center was well equipped.  The machines were new and the room was clean.  There were 3 other foreigners there.  Two of them, who were apparently from Costa Rica, were hardcore gym rats.  Working out was definitely a priority over any form of sightseeing while they were in Myanmar so it seemed.

We showered, then went downstairs for breakfast.  The breakfast assortment was impressive.  There were many dishes to choose from, though most of the dishes were more suited towards lunch or dinner.  In either case, I couldn't complain, and was in fact, quite happy, to eat fried rice, fried noodles, and sweet and sour pork for breakfast.  In addition I had banana bread and a terrible buttercream cake as well.  I left breakfast satisfied and was also, thus far, having consumed my only meal in Myanmar, content with Burmese cuisine.

There wasn't any solid plans that we had in regards to sightseeing around Yangon.  We knew we had to see the Shwedagon Pagoda, but other than that, everything else was up in the air.  Erik had suggested taking the Circle Train around Yangon and it seemed like a good idea.  The nearest station was a short walk from our hotel.  We asked the station master for a ticket and the cost of a ticket was 200 Kyat (~20 cents).  It was a bit of a laughable moment when we realized just how cheap this ticket was.  Although we had heard that the entire circle would take around 3 hours, the station master insisted that it would take 45 minutes, another laughable moment.

The train line is a bit similar to the Yamanote in Tokyo.  It basically loops around the city.  However, in this case, none of stations, with few exceptions, seemed to be of any importance to anyone except for the locals.

The many stops of the Yangon Circular Train

Similarly to India, the trains in Myanmar are old and have a "free for all" style of boarding.  The train hardly "stops" at each station, as it mostly just slows down so that people can jump on and off.  In reality though, the train probably does not ever exceed 15 mph, so you could, in theory, jump on or off at any time.

What caught our attention was that a few of the trains were JR trains.  Some even had stickers on the train with a Japan and Myanmar flag.  In 2014, Japan had donated some of their older diesel trains and had provided training for operation and maintenance.  It was definitely bizarre to see JR trains, especially since they resembled the trains seen in Tagawa, running on an old and questionably unsafe track in Yangon.

JR train spotting

The "AC" train.  You can ride this luxury train
for an additional 100 Kyat (10 cents)

Japan <3 Myanmar.  

Myanmar <3 Japan

There were of course trains that originated from Myanmar.  Though, I actually can't be sure of that.  But what I do know, is that they weren't JR trains.  These trains were covered in advertisements with a very basic interior.

Inside a standard Myanmar train

The people of the train were a spectacle.  It may sound boring to sit on a train for 3 hours as it circled the outskirts of the country's largest city, but having the opportunity to observe and at times, interact with the locals, was a great experience.  We watched farmers hop on with bags of produce.  We saw vendors come on to the train, selling food, water, and betel nut.  We saw monks hop on, families, teenagers, and elders, the train was truly meant for the local population.

Locals getting ready to hop on the train

The train stopped at a station for 1 hour and we were left confused.  This was the terminus point for the train we had originally caught and therefore, we were to wait for the next train to continue our journey.  The wait seemed like an eternity.  Standing under the shade was important as the blistering 100+ degree weather was rather uncomfortable.  We spent the time people watching and watching other trains pass by, hoping that the information about our next train received by this particular stations master was correct.  It was correct.  It was however, late, of course, and on we went, our final destination being Yangon Main Railway Station.

It took another 2 hours or so till we finally reached the main railway station.  Along the way we met a few people who decided to talk to us.  One man stood out in particular as he was definitely feeling the buzz from his addictive chewing of betel nut.  He was very friendly and excited to talk to us.  He tried to teach us a few Burmese words that I no longer remember and also enjoyed pointing out the general location of where we were.

Yangon Main Railway Station

We got off at the main station after nearly 4 hours.  The estimated time of 45 minutes for the trip was clearly way off point.  But we expected that and enjoyed our time on the train.  The main station is located in the heart of downtown.

Sule Pagoda in the distance

Sule Pagoda

We were hungry so we looked for food.  We found a department store and proceeded to the top floor where a food court was located.  For some reason, we settled on a burger.  It wasn't good, it wasn't bad, and it definitely was not Burmese cuisine.  But it was enough, it was satisfying.

At this point, we didn't have any plans.  The only plan we had was heading back to the hotel before 7:30 so that we could watch soccer.  We walked pass Sule Pagoda, a pagoda located in the center of downtown Yangon, but we did not go in.  Generally, one should enter a pagoda or temple with pants that cover the knees and barefoot.  As we were in shorts, we decided to pass on this pagoda and wait till the next day to see the main, and much larger Shwedagon Pagoda.  Therefore, we thought it be a good idea to head to the shopping market to look for a longyi, basically a burmese pareo for men.

The old government buildings

A park

Sometimes you get caught in traffic

Street food

Soccer on the street.
Barefoot and 100 degree weather? Nope.

Erik spotted an information center while walking around the city.  He thought it be a good idea to go in to find a place where he could exchange Yen for Kyat.  It turns out, he was able to exchange there.  In addition, this information center, which was run by the Myanmar Ministry of Tourism, turned out to be quite useful.  They gave us suggestions for sightseeing and also helped us book bus tickets for Bagan in the following days.  They also did, however, inform us that the market would be closed at night.  So we did have to create a new plan for the rest of the afternoon.

When in doubt, just cruise the city.  We walked around, stopping at things that seemed interesting as we made our way back to the hotel.

Local boats on the river

A small market

We ate dinner at a Chinese restaurant near our hotel.  It was relatively expensive.  The prices were comparable to a Chinese meal in almost any other part of the world.  When the bill came I was out 9,000 Kyat ($9.00).  The food was standard and nothing to write home about, so I won't.

Prior to returning, we picked up a few alcoholic and of course for myself, non-alcoholic drinks from a bar across the street from our hotel.  It seemed unsafe to go in, but this is Myanmar, where people are incredibly kind and also very safe.  It was cool to get a glimpse of local bar life, even if just for a few minutes.  Our hotel had a 'Recreation Room' that featured a snooker table and disappointing dartboard.  It also featured a TV.  So it was in this room that we played snooker while watching soccer.

After our first full day of experiencing the heat, we called it an early night.