Yangon at a standstill

As we drove into Yangon, I suddenly saw why the government might have wanted to move to a new city. The traffic here is truly terrible. There is nothing wrong with the roads themselves, they are in pretty good shape, but the volume of cars means that nothing goes anywhere. And this isn't due to an accident or any ad hoc problem, it is just the norm.

One thing that we quickly noticed was the lack of any two wheeled modes of transport. Unlike everywhere else, where mopeds and small motorbikes are the norm, with a good number of regular bikes still thrown in, none of those are to be found here. We did see the occasional bicycle sneak around, but that was it. Apparently, a government official had his car hit by a bike of some form, so promptly banned all two wheel vehicles. I can't vouch for the truth of that, but that is the story.

But there is no shortage of cars and they all seem to be in front of you and going the same way! It took us forever to get around the city, which made the further afield sites a little frustrating to get to.

Anyway, we did finally reach our hotel, and had a bit of time to relax before a few of us headed out to see if we could pick up a bit of street food. We would have been fine if we wanted just anything, but we had agreed to go for some dhosa that had been spotted earlierin the day, so the search was on for them.

Unfortunately, all the dhosa vendors seemed to have packed up early for the night. On the brink of disappointment, someone directed us towards a little restaurant, and sure enough, there were dhosa there. It was my first taste of them, and I was a bit dubious as spicy floors and I don't mix well, but as they are basically a pancake with stuff to dip them in, I just stuck to the one dip I liked and all was fine.

Yangon is noticeably different from the rest of Myanmar, not only because of the traffic. Whereas Mandalay and some other big towns do have some big 'western style' buildings, much of it is still very low level and in parts quite ramshackle. Yangon has a much higher proportion of taller and larger buildings, albeit that many are now quite old and a bit run down.

Also the people dress differently. In most of Myanmar, the majority of women and many men still wear the traditional longhi. Here, some still do, but the majority are in western style clothing. Quite a lot of the women are still using the thanaka though.

The ghost town of Nay Pyi Taw

Ask most people what the capital of Myanmar is, and they will probably say Yangon, or maybe its old name of Rangoon. That would have been true up until 2005, but since then there is a new capital, and its name is Nay Pyi Taw.

Not only is this the new capital, it is a brand new city. For reasons best known to themselves, the government decided to spend a large chunk of the country's money, not on schools, health or helpful things like that, but on building a completely new capital city.

It has a huge, beautifully landscaped swathe of land, with fancy buildings for all of the various ministries, and an enormous government building. Not that you can get anywhere close to the main building with all of its security; it has its own extensive grounds and there are well guarded roadblocks closing off the roads around it.

And talking of the roads. In this country where even the main roads between cities are terrible, Nay Pyi Taw has been given eight lane superhighways, with perfectly smooth surfaces. And there is absolutely no traffic! Why no traffic? Because there's no one here.

The foreign embassies have steadfastly refused to move from Yangon, and so has pretty much īanyone else who has the choice. They built homes for the government officers, but apparently even most of them only live here during the week and go back to Yangon at the weekends. There are people on the outskirts of town, who used to live in the villages that were absorbed when the city was built, but other than that, few people actually live here, and hardly anyone visits except for business reasons.

Foreigners like us have to stay in one of the big business hotels that have been built along one road. They are decent enough hotels, but they are definitely intended for business and conference use, rather than tourists. Not surprisingly really, as there is not really anything much here to see.

They have put in a water park, presumably to give the businessmen something to do in the evening, but it is fairly unimpressive.

The main sight here is Uppatasanti Paya, a somewhat unimaginative copy of the famous Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon. Why they would choose to make a poor imitation of an already popular place, rather than build something new and unique, I really don't understand.


And while we are on the subject of things I find strange, there is a real obsession with neon lighting here. Not just this temple, all over Myanmar, Buddha images are dressed up like Christmas trees in twinkling neon lights.

They do have elephants here though. And not just any elephants, but white elephants. I say white, but like white people, they are really a kind of pinky-beige colour. We use the phrase 'white elephant' to mean something useless and frivolous, and that comes from the way these creatures are treated in much of South East Asia.

But whereas we use the phrase in a negative way, a white elephant is in fact a revered animal, because Buddha's mother dreamed of one when she became pregnant with him. So they are costly, frivolous and fairly useless, because they have to be looked after without being put to work, but they are also a cherished symbol of status.

As to Nay Pyi Taw itself, it was interesting to come here to see this new ghost of a city, and how it contrasts with everything else we have seen in Myanmar, but to be honest, unless you have time to kill, I wouldn't bother.

On a separate note, today we said goodbye to our government friend Mr T, as he was heading home. We were sad to see him go, as he always had such a cheerful smile!