Yangon in 3 days

Yangon Downtown Heritage Zone (the British colonial downtown core of Yangon — the 9 km² area bounded by Strand Road (the Yangon River waterfront), Sule Pagoda Road, Mahabandula Road and Bogyoke Aung San Street: the most complete Victorian-era colonial urban streetscape in Southeast Asia): the grid (the British military engineers who occupied Rangoon in 1852 (the Second Anglo-Burmese War) laid out the downtown grid of Yangon on the reclaimed mudflat along the Yangon River (the "Rangoon Plan" of 1852 — the rectangular grid of streets named after British colonial officials and military officers: Phayre Street (after the first British Commissioner of Pegu), Fraser Street, Merchant Street, Dalhousie Street, etc.; most streets were renamed after Burmese historical figures after independence in 1948)): the most important heritage buildings: the Secretariat (the "Tatmadaw Ah Linn Taung" — the former British Burma Government Secretariat, built 1889-1905 in the Indo-Saracenic style by Henry Hoyne-Fox and E.W. Jacobsen: the most symbolically important building in modern Myanmar history — the building where General Aung San (Bogyoke Aung San — the father of Burmese independence, the father of Aung San Suu Kyi) was assassinated on July 19, 1947 (6 months before independence, by the political rival U Saw)); the High Court (1911 — the Indo-Saracenic building designed by James Ransome: the most ornate colonial building in downtown Yangon); the Strand Hotel (1901 — the landmark colonial hotel on Strand Road built by the Sarkies Brothers (the Armenian hotel dynasty who also built Raffles Hotel Singapore).

Sule Pagoda (ဆူးလေဘုရား — Sule Zedi; on the central roundabout of downtown Yangon, at the junction of Sule Pagoda Road and Mahabandula Road — the most centrally located Buddhist pagoda of any major Southeast Asian city: the Sule Pagoda is literally in the middle of the most important traffic roundabout in the Yangon city centre): the history (the Sule Pagoda is believed (by the Burmese Buddhist tradition) to be 2,600 years old (older than the Shwedagon Pagoda) and to contain a hair of the Buddha as well as the "thura" spirit (the nat (Burmese animist spirit) that protects the pagoda); the British used the Sule Pagoda as a geographic reference point when planning the Rangoon grid in 1852 — the two main axes of the colonial downtown grid (Sule Pagoda Road (north-south) and Mahabandula Road (east-west)) were aligned on the Sule Pagoda as the central datum point (the Sule Pagoda is thus simultaneously the religious heart and the urban planning origin point of colonial Rangoon)); the pagoda structure (the Sule Pagoda is 48 m tall (half the height of the Shwedagon): the octagonal shape from base to apex (unusual — most Burmese stupas are circular in plan at the upper sections; the Sule Pagoda retains the octagonal form through the full height — the Mon architectural tradition of octagonal form that predates the circular Burmese stupa style); the devotional atmosphere (the Sule Pagoda is more actively used as a daily devotional pagoda by Yangon residents than the Shwedagon (which is the most significant but also the most visited by tourists): the midday atmosphere (12:00-14:00) when office workers come for a brief prayer during lunch break is the most genuinely local experience in downtown Yangon.

Yangon Circular Train (the ring railway (ရန်ကုန်-မြို့ပတ် — Yangon Myo Pat) — the 45.9 km circular railway that loops around Yangon's outer suburbs and satellite townships; one complete circuit takes approximately 2h45 minutes; the most ethnographically interesting public transport experience in Southeast Asia): the railway (the Yangon Circular Railway was built by the British colonial administration and opened in 1954 (6 years after Burmese independence); the trains used on the line are a combination of aging Japanese and Korean rolling stock donated in the 1990s-2000s development assistance programmes and the original 1954 British-era wooden-seated carriages; the train departs from the central Yangon Railway Station (the 1954 colonial-era station adjacent to the Bogyoke Market) and loops northward through the outer townships and satellite industrial areas before returning; the journey (the Circular Train is used primarily by local commuters and the occasional adventurous tourist: the train passes through the outer townships of Yangon (the Insein Township, the Shwepyithar Township) where the suburban market gardens (the Chinese and Indian market gardeners who have farmed the peri-urban areas of Yangon for 150 years), the informal food vendors boarding at each station, the bamboo baskets of produce, the school children, the monks in burgundy robes and the peanut sellers who lean in through the train windows at the station stops create the most unfiltered window into daily Yangon life available to visitors); the food on board (the train platform and on-board food vendors: the mohinga (the rice noodle fish broth — the national breakfast dish of Myanmar), the samosa, the fried beancurd, the sugarcane juice at the station platforms.

Yangon evening food culture (the Theravada Buddhist culinary tradition of Myanmar and the colonial Indian-Chinese-Burmese hybrid cuisine of Yangon): the mohinga (မုန့်ဟင်းခါး — the national dish of Myanmar: the rice noodle (fine round rice vermicelli) fish broth: the dish consists of the thin rice noodles in a thick fish-and-banana stem broth (the broth base: the catfish broth (the Pangasianodon hypophthalmus — the Pangasius catfish of the Irrawaddy River delta) thickened with the rice flour, flavoured with the lemongrass, the turmeric, the ginger, the shrimp paste and the fish sauce, thickened further with the shredded banana stem (the pith of the banana trunk)); the toppings (the mohinga toppings include: the crispy split pea fritters (pe kyaw), the fish cake (nga pyaw kyaw), the hard-boiled egg (halved), the fresh coriander, the lime squeeze and the dried chilli flakes); the mohinga is eaten at breakfast by most Yangon residents (the morning mohinga stall is the social hub of Yangon neighbourhoods — Aung San Suu Kyi described mohinga as the most unifying element of Myanmar culture: "we may be of different religions and ethnicities, but we all eat mohinga for breakfast"); the teahouse culture (the Burmese tea shop (လက်ဖက်ရည်ဆိုင် — the teahouse of Yangon: the most important social institution in Burmese urban culture; the tea (the Myanmar green tea (lapet so — the fermented pickled tea leaf is eaten as a condiment: the lahpet thohk (the pickled tea leaf salad: the most unique Burmese food: fermented tea leaves mixed with sesame seeds, dried shrimp, peanuts, dried garlic, tomato and lime) is the most distinctively Burmese dish after mohinga).

Chaukhtatgyi Buddha (ချောက်ထပ်ကြီးဘုရား — the "Six-Storey Buddha": the 65-metre reclining Buddha figure in the covered shrine hall on Shwegondaing Road in the Bahan township of Yangon, 3 km northeast of the Shwedagon Pagoda): the statue (the Chaukhtatgyi Buddha is the largest reclining Buddha in Yangon and one of the largest in Myanmar: the 65-metre figure represents the historical Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) in the moment of Mahaparinirvana (the "Great Final Nirvana" — the death-into-Nirvana of the Buddha, which according to the Theravada tradition occurred at Kushinagar in northern India around 483 BCE); the image (the reclining posture (the parinirvana position): the Buddha lying on the right side, the right hand supporting the head, the eyes open (or half-open) and smiling; the Chaukhtatgyi Buddha face is the most ornately painted and decorated Buddha face in Yangon: the eyes (the white enamel with the painted iris and pupil, the gilded eyelids) and the feet (the soles of the feet (the 108 auspicious symbols (the Mahajanaka symbols — the 108 Buddhist cosmological images) painted on the soles of the 5-metre feet of the Chaukhtatgyi Buddha: the 108 symbols of the Pali Buddhist tradition (the Dhamma wheel, the lotus, the conch, the parasol, the dharma drum, the golden fish pair and 102 other auspicious signs))); the devotional atmosphere (the Chaukhtatgyi Buddha shrine is an active place of Buddhist worship (unlike many monument-sized religious images in Southeast Asia): the devotees circumambulate the statue, make flower offerings at the face and the feet, meditate in the adjacent covered hall where monks teach the dharma to lay students.

National Museum of Myanmar (the national museum on Pyidaungsu Yeiktha Road, 2 km north of the Sule Pagoda; 6 floors of exhibitions): the Regalia Hall (the most important hall in the National Museum — Floor 1: the Regalia Hall containing the original throne and regalia of the Konbaung dynasty (the last Burmese royal dynasty (1752-1885)): the Lion Throne (ကြေးနန်းဦး — the Sihasana (Lion Throne) of the Burmese kings: the original Mandalay Palace Lion Throne (the gilded carved teak throne of the Konbaung dynasty kings of Mandalay (1857-1885)) is displayed in the Regalia Hall; the throne was confiscated by the British Army after the conquest of Mandalay and the annexation of Upper Burma in 1885 (the fall of King Thibaw Min — the last king of Burma); the throne was returned to Myanmar by the British government in 1948 (at independence); the Lion Throne is the most important single object in the National Museum: the actual throne on which the last Burmese kings sat is the most charged symbol of Burmese royal sovereignty (the throne room of the Mandalay Palace was called the Throneroom or Audience Hall (Myin Gundaing) — the place where the king received foreign ambassadors and gave judgement); the other Regalia Hall objects (the royal regalia: the state umbrella (the white umbrella was the universal symbol of Burmese royal authority — the number of umbrellas a person was entitled to indicated their rank in the Burmese court hierarchy: the king was entitled to 9 white umbrellas, a senior prince 5, a lesser noble 3), the ceremonial swords, the royal costumes).

Yangon downtown street walk (the self-guided walking tour of the most intact Victorian colonial streetscape in Southeast Asia): the recommended walk route (the 3 km Heritage Zone walk: starting at the Strand Hotel (the 1901 Sarkies Brothers colonial hotel on Strand Road, restored by Abercrombie & Kent in 1993 (the restoration cost $7 million USD) — the most glamorous address in British Rangoon, where Kipling stayed and where Somerset Maugham wrote parts of "The Gentleman in the Parlour"); walking west along Strand Road (the riverside colonial embankment — the view of the Yangon River and the working port: the container vessels, the wooden cargo boats, the Dala ferry crossing to the south bank of the river); north on Boardaux Street to the Customs House (1915 — the classical portico building on the river bank); east to the High Court (1911 — the Indo-Saracenic red-brick and white plaster building with the Mughal-influenced arched windows and the corner domed towers); north to Mahabandula Park (the central park of colonial Rangoon, now renamed for the Burmese General Maha Bandula (who died fighting the British in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-1826)); the Independence Monument (the obelisk in the centre of Mahabandula Park, erected in 1948 at the moment of Burmese independence from Britain (January 4, 1948, at 4:20 AM — the time chosen by astrologers as the most auspicious moment for Burmese independence)); the City Hall (1936 — the most architecturally impressive colonial building in downtown Yangon: the buff-yellow brick with the red painted window arches and the Burmese pyatthat (tiered spire) roof elements added by the architect Sithu U Tin to give the building a distinctly Burmese character within the colonial frame).

Shwedagon Pagoda in the evening (the second visit to the most sacred site in Myanmar — the atmosphere at the Shwedagon at night is entirely different from the dawn visit): the evening devotional scene (the Shwedagon in the evening (18:00-21:00) is the busiest period for Burmese devotional activity: the families come after work and school to make offerings, light candles and incense, pour water at the planetary posts and sit in meditation or conversation in the shrine halls; the monks arrive for evening prayers; the young novices (the samanera — the young boys who have temporarily "taken robes" to earn merit for their families — a tradition virtually universal in Burmese Buddhist families, where every male takes the robes at least once between age 7 and 20) practice the walking meditation on the platform); the illumination (the Shwedagon stupa under floodlights: the gold surface catches the artificial light differently from natural light (the floodlighting creates a more uniform and intense gold than the dawn directional light — the stupa appears heavier and more overwhelming at night than in the morning light; the devotees appear in silhouette against the luminous gold surface); the music (the traditional Burmese music (the hsaing waing ensemble (the circular frame of 21 tuned drums (the pat waing), the oboe (the hne), the hammered dulcimer (the pattala) and the cymbals and gong)) at the evening festival performances (the most likely to be heard on full moon days and Buddhist holy days — the Burmese Buddhist calendar has monthly devotional observances on the full moon (the Uposatha day) which are particularly celebrated at the Shwedagon).