Devin's Travels: Yangon

So I actually was in Yangon twice: when I first arrived in Myanmar and also at the end of my time in the country to leave. This is because Yangon (formerly called Rangoon) was the capital of Myanmar (and still is really the economic capital) so it contains the only main international airport.

My first time in Yangon I only spent a day and a half wandering around the city and the only main sight that I saw was the Shwedagon Paya, easily the most famous paya in Yangon and maybe even Myanmar. The Shwedagon Paya was very impressive, especially seen during sunset as the golden paya seemed to glow in the setting light. Around the main paya were many buildings containing buddha statues and other religious paintings. The atmosphere here was what really made it great though as there were at least a hundred (probably more) local people praying around the paya.

Other than the Shwedagon Paya just wandering around the streets of downtown Yangon was really interesting. Everywhere you walked there were street stalls selling anything you could think of, the buildings were mostly old british colonial style and were pretty interesting to look at, and almost everyone on the street was super friendly and wanting to talk to you. So in all I just enjoyed wandering around and getting lost for my first experiences in the country.

On my return visit the first thing that I went to accomplish was apply for my Indian visa and organize a flight out to Kolkata. This surprisingly took most of my first day back as I had some trouble getting on the flight that I wanted and had to talk to several travel agents before I was able to get on the waiting list (the next day I managed to get on the flight).

The following day I again wandered around the downtown of Yangon but also stopped off at Sule Paya, a paya located in a traffic circle (essentially) in the heart of downtown. This paya wasn't anywhere near as spectacular as Shwedagon but it was still worth a visit. My third day back in Yangon I wandered up to Kandawgyi Lake, a nice relaxing lake with a pathway around it just to the north of downtown. I spent a while just relaxing there and also wandering around the surrounding area.

The next day in Yangon was my final full day in the country and I spent most of it making sure that I was ready to leave and getting my Passport with Indian visa back from the Indian Embassy. As you can probably tell there isn't a whole lot of tourist attractions in Yangon and most of my final week here was spent killing time while I waited for my Indian visa and my flight out. As a result I was fairly bored most of the time with nothing much to do other than just walk around town.

Finally 5 days after arriving back in Yangon I went out to the airport to catch my flight to India where I plan on spending around the next 2 months of my trip. So my time in Southeast Asia has come to an end after slightly more than 5 very enjoyable months. Check back soon for my adventures in India.