MYANMAR - DAY ONE, YANGON EXPLORATION

Tuesday - 24 March 2015 - Yangon, Myanmar

Our balcony faced the continually fascinating Yangon River

Early Tuesday morning Silver Wind sailed up "Mouths of the Irrawaddy" and entered the Yangon River. The pre-cruise materials said that we would be docking at a commercial wharf 15 miles from town. So we were delighted to see the Silver Wind tie up at the downtown pier instead. This is a tricky approach for a large ship. Silver Wind had to wait for flood tide and rotate to bow downstream just as the current pauses before reversing in the river so as to avoid going sideways. We were thrilled by this maneuver since it provided  us with a view from our starboard balcony of the always fascinating river.

Some of Yangon's streets appeared at least from afar modern and well kept, although the buildings were decaying

Side streets were more interesting, definitely Asian

Myanmar is a just developing country. The military dictatorship ruled with an iron hand until the recent thaw. Outside investment has come, but the country formerly still has a way to go. We walked on shore as soon as the ship was"cleared"and took the first ship's shuttle to the far end of downtown as a shortcut for our intended destination, the Shwedagon Pagoda. We had a plan for a day of independent exploration in this city of 6,000,000.

Local woman apparently on a shopping trip in downtown Yangon

Shopkeepers relaxing. White makeup is a plant based sunscreen said to "enhance the skin"

Myanmar was to be the only country on our 32 day cruise that could be honestly called, "third world." Politics, lack of a true middle class, and the barely a hint of human rights were not evident to us as tourists. Just as well. I've learned that no matter what the state of a country is, it still 2015 everywhere. There were satellite dishes, the usual range of retail business along the traffic laden streets, and some people fiddling with cell phones. Just fewer cell phones and those we saw were flip phones. So maybe there is something left of a "backwards nation." It was evident as well that the infrastructure in Yangon is way below any of the major capitals in Asia we had visited. With a few notable exceptions the buildings, rail lines, and streets maintenance consist primarily of decaying remnants of the British colonial era. That is, pre-WWII. The constant heat and humidity are partially to blame for the decay of course. The average (not record) high for March in Yangon is 97 degrees Fahrenheit. It was somewhat hotter for our walk from the shuttle stop at a large tourist market.

Cleaning equipment and cage salesman

Less than appealing hotel cafe and hospital in downtown Yangon

Travel has many mysteries, such as what these ladies were pumping

The shuttle dropped us off at an unexplained huge shopping center consisting of only high end Jewelry stores

When I visited Rangoon, as Yangon was called in the mid-1990s, there were open sewers and the streets were not nearly so busy. Soldiers with big weapons were everywhere. Those things have changed for the better, but the buildings seems in worse shape. What was much better was the vibrancy of the people on the still garbage strewn streets. (It seems that the more repressive the government, the more the people use the streets as linear open garbage cans.) Some street scenes seemed almost modern, but some of the activities we observed proved a very important rule of international travel: the more you see, the less you really understand. It's worse in developing countries. A gentleman selling some sort of cages as well as cleaning supplies apparently made from human hair stood in the street amidst the traffic. I don't know what the cages were for. A sign for a hospital reminded us to stay very healthy. 

The huge shopping center the shuttle dropped us off at consisted of only high end jewelry shops, a puzzlement with only tentative explanations coming to mind as we were the only tourists.

Railway stations in Asia are often government provided shelters

We found to our delight a local train station immediately behind the jewelry center. We checked it out. As is common in Asian countries without formal government assistance, that is just about all of them, the railway stations are informal (or maybe intended) shelters for homeless and destitute.

Smaller Buddhist temple on the way to the gigantic Shwedagon

The stupa centering the Shwedagon Pagoda is almost 400-feet high

The walk around the Shwedagon took almost an hour, passing numerous shrines

Buddha likenesses graced this side temple in the Shwedagon complex

The walk around the Shwedagon Pagoda is worth the visit to Myanmar

Young monks on a pilgrimage to the Shwedagon Pagoda 

We moved on to our primary destination, the Shwedagon Pagoda. The hilltop 6th Century Buddhist pilgrimage site is centered around a 368-foot high stupa, a characteristic solid monument containing a relic of Buddha. This stupa holds six strands of Buddha's hair given in person to the local people by a monk a 1000 years ago said a sign in English.  The Shwedagon complex is immense. It is surrounded by dozens of small chapels and various Buddhist monuments. Young monks, local people, and tourists walk--always clockwise unless you want to be scowled at--around the monument. Our circumambulation took the better part of an hour. Shwedagon is on a hill surrounded by some smaller stupas and a couple of smaller shrines. More were visible from our shuttle ride from the ship. Yangon has a lot of Buddhist monuments.

Lobby of the Strand Hotel, the third of the grand Raffles hotels visited on this cruise

Exhausted by the heat and our long walk from the shopping center to the Shwedagon, we engaged an air conditioned taxi for the couple of miles ride back to the river. I asked the driver to drop us off at the Strand Hotel. The cab cost $5. The Strand is the third of the original Raffles properties we visited on this cruise. Like the Eastern and Oriental Hotel we visited a few days earlier in Penang, the Strand had been restored and is now of course air conditioned. Otherwise it looked as I remember during my 1997 visit. That that time the lobby reeked with the aroma of brewed tea. The a/c must have cleared the air. The lobby just smelled like an hotel lobby.The tea smell was a legacy of decades of colonialists discussing their empire in the small bar off the lobby. We dodged the traffic and crossed the street to the entrance to the small downtown port and returned to Silver Wind for cocktails. I had a gin and tonic, an homage to the British who ruled then Burma for 150 years.

Tomorrow we were booked for an all day excursion. We were looking forward to seeing Bogo, the historic inland kingdom capital of the Mon people.