The rotunda is a pagoda, the Sule Pagoda.
Isn’t that interesting? Surrounding the pagoda, however, are all sorts of shops
– mobile phone stores, copy centers, fast food, flowers, etc. The sacred and
the profane right there.
We parked across the City Hall. A bluish
grey monster that is largely Colonnial, with Burmese touches at the top. In the
façade, you see a couple of dragon statues on the left and right side. In the
middle is a statue of a peacock, the national animal and their symbol for the
sun. The kings of old believed they were descended from the sun, and were
represented by the peacock. (The queens came from the moon, and their symbol is
a rabbit.)
To our right are two other colonial-style
structures, a Baptist church and the Supreme Court. The Court is eminently
Victorian and has a clock tower. Sessions continue to held there. (During our
visit, farmers had a rally. They were protesting an alleged unjust land
distribution.) Behind us is a huge park, formerly named after Britain’s Queen
Victoria. It is now called Freedom Park and has an obelisk that marked
Myanmar’s independence from Britain in 1948.
Traffic was busy. Our guide, the affable
Thu Rein, told us car license plates are color-coded – private vehicles have
black plates, public ones have red, religious ones yellow, and tourist ones
blue. Motorcycles, he said, are growing in number. Most motorcyclists did not
wear helmets; they were also wearing sandals or flip flops.
We walked with Thu Rein at Bank Street,
literally the street were all the major banks are located. Vendors were all
over the pavement. Fruits – guavas, mangosteen, pineapple, rambutan, dragon
fruit, mangoes – seemed to be in season. They peeled green mangoes the same way
Filipino vendors did – like a flower with open petals. Vendors also served full
meals – soup, fish, rice, curry, satay. They brought out stools; people huddled
in corners eating. Vendors also sold longyis (the national costume), shawls,
and other accessories. We passed a lottery booth. Thu Rein said lotteries are
big in Yangon.
Our first stop was Strand Hotel, Yangon’s
oldest hotel. Established by the British in 1901, the place has been
well-preserved. It looks practically the same as the painting on its wall.
There is a tea room, of course! We visited the shop and the gallery. A statue
of the Buddha instantly caught my attention. Images of the Buddha were carved
inside a piece of pole that was divided into three parts and hinged together.
You can open the pole and see the images; close it and it looks like a carved
piece of wood. Amazing!
From the Strand, we went to River Ayayawady
Gallery. The Gallery has a fine collection of oil and watercolor paintings,
landscapes mostly – Myanmar’s countryside and the pagodas, of course – and
differently portraits of Aung San Suu Kyi. Two portraits are eye-catching. One
is composed of English words like freedom, democracy, independence (ideals that
Suu Kyi stands for) that form her face. The other is composed of words, too,
except they were painted in Burmese alphabet, with its mostly-rounded and
connected letters.
The Burmese seem to love food as much as we
do and have fine restaurants. Lunch was at Acacia Restaurant, home of the best
Italian cuisine here. It did not disappoint. Fancy that – Italian in Myanmar!
Read about love and death, and our last day in the city in my Yangon Journal 10.
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