The ground crew of AirAsia and the customs weren’t really bothered about my condition but of course I tried not to show off that I’m totally drunk what maybe didn’t work so well. Max had this great idea to buy some yellow plastic glasses with palms on the top in Bangkok and put these glasses on everybodys nose who crossed his way. Now that he flew home he gave me this glasses to continue with the fun and I started in the Airport already. Unfortunately the most people weren’t as ethusiastic about the glasses as I was but maybe it was just too early in the morning. Anyway, I got a few pictures and usually wanted pictures of the stewards and stewardesses, too, but I slept in in the same second as I took my seat. My direct neighbour woke me up when the airplane was back on the ground and almost empty already, I was the last person who left it. So I was the last person from this flight that got it’s luggage, too and I was the last person that left the airport building as well, at a time when the free shuttle offered from my guesthouse already left without me, thinking that there’s nobody more to come out. It was not a big deal, I now shared a regular taxi with three other Germans and one Israeli what was good fun, too. Our taxi ” driver was funny and free to talk about the situation and the government in his country and I got some “yellow glasses” pictures as well. Really a great thing, this yellow glasses and a great pity that I lost them already after two days… When we finally arrived at the guesthouse I just had the desire to sleep, what I did, for almost the whole day.
The next day I was fit again and it was time to get some first impressions in this country. Yangon has nearly 5 million inhabitants and is the biggest city in the country but not the capital anymore. The military generals, who are the men with the power there, decided in 2005 to switch the capital to Nay Pyi Taw (means “Royal Capital”), a city that didn’t exist before this decision and is in construction now. That’s where all the money goes to… but more about that later. I really liked Yangon from the first minutes I arrived there. It’s definitely something else here compared to the other big cities in South-East Asia. It feels a little bit as if you were thrown back into the eightis. The majority of the people still wears their traditional clothing (that is a skirt for men and woman, called “longyi” for men and “ingyi” for woman), you don’t see a lot of people with mobile phones, the streets aren’t very crowded (in asian dimensions) and the most people seem to live a pretty simple life. Of course, Yangon is the biggest city and the cultural and economical capital of the country and can find almost everything here that you can find in Germany or Thailand, too, but you have to look out for these things, you don’t face them everywhere like in the rest of this globalised, standardised world. And one thing that I recognised very fast was, that the people in Yangon are very humourous and good for a laugh. When you see the condition their country is in you maybe have to be.
As a city itself, Yangon is a big mixture of missionary or colonial (that means christian), indian, bamar, muslim and modern western influences, that makes it to a big melting pot of cultures. You see people of all world religions on the street and some quarters have a destinctive flavour of India or others of China. Otherwise the city is definitely not a beauty and poverty, social mismanagement, a lack of infrastructure etc. is visible everywhere. Everything is said wenn I tell you that the government can’t manage it to provide enough electricity for their biggest and most developed city. Power cuts are very frequent, like 5-6 times a day, everytime for hours.
But for sure Yangon has the great sights that ” /> are a must see for every visitor in Myanmar, too. At first to mention is definitely the famous Shwedagon Paya, the most important buddhist pagoda in Myanmar. I visited the pagoda twice in one day, one time during the day and one time in the evening and for me it’s just a magical place. A place where you start to dream and where suddenly all questions if this kind of a travel lifestyle is worth all the inconveniences that come with it, are answered: Yes, it is! The Shwedagon Paya is not just one huge gold-glowing stupa (but it is, as well), around the main stupa there’s a big assortment of smaller stupas, statues, temples, shrines, images and pavillons and everything is coloured in this glowing orange gold – people say that the Shwedagon Paya holds more gold reserves than the whole Bank Of England. It’s one of these places where you have to remind yourself how privileged you are and thankfully you should be to see this because there are a lot of people who’s biggest dream it is to go to this place and for them it will just remain a dream. The Shwedagon Paya is maybe the most impressive, but by far not the only tourist attraction in the city, another example of a golden pagoda is the Sule Paya, it has it’s place in the middle of the biggest street roundabout in the city, very strange.
At all I spent three nights and four days in Yangon, mostly strolling around the city and occasionally visiting a temple or another tourist site and it was really a good time. The people here are really openminded and I somehow liked the athmosphere that flows through the, very often, dirty and smelly streets.