A crumbling ex capital

Our next overnight bus takes us to Yangon, once called Dagon, then Yangon, with a brief British period as Rangoon. It was the capital of Myanmar until 2006 until the military government moved it to Naypyidaw. One word for me describes Yangon completely - squalid. It is possible to see the fine city it once was but that is a far cry from how it is now. The vast majority of buildings are dirty and crumbling, the faces a little less smiling but still as friendly. Much entertainment is found watching the rats whilst drinking our beer.

The Shwedagon Pagoda is about 2 km from the centre of town, it is reputedly over 2600 years old making it the oldest in Myanmar. The vane and ball atop the Pagoda are studded with diamonds and jewels. The large diamond that tops the ball is 76 carats and there is a total of over 1000 carats of diamonds on the ball and vane. The top of the pagoda is clad with half a ton of gold plate. We visit late afternoon to see the pagoda at sunset. There are hundreds possibly thousands of Buddha images, some are bathed, all are worshipped. The sun goes down and the pagoda is lit, it is beautiful. Our next view of the pagoda is from the Sky Bistrot in the Sakura Tower supping ice cold beer.

The centre of Yangon was once at the Shwedagon pagoda, it is now the Sule Pagoda, a stones throw from the City Hall by the Mahabandoola Garden. This square was the focus of the 1988-90 pro democracy uprising and saw many atrocities against the protesters. There is an obelisk marking independence here. Today the garden is a little haven in the middle of a very busy city, peaceful enough that the Chinese practice Tai chi here.

We plan to leave by train having heard the trains are an experience in themselves. At the station we are told this is the today ticket office and we must go back to the city side of the station to get to the advance ticket office. This is in an immense open air hall with 20 windows in one area and about 10 in another. There is a dead rat in the 20 window side and a live one in the other, window 16 of 20 tells us only ordinary class, upper class is in the other side. I'm on rat watch whilst Adrian grumblingly purchases two upper class tickets these being $8 instead of $3. So let's see what the next step brings.