The Havana of Asia

Yangon from the air looks very different from Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore or other metropolises in Asia. The city boasts nearly four million people, yet there are no gleaming glass and steel sky scrapers or soaring suspension bridges across the Yangon or Bago rivers, like the Nan Pu Bridge in Shanghai. Aside from a few high-rise buildings and hotels constructed in the 1990s, Yangon still retains much of its colonial era charm, with hundreds of decaying but still beautiful Victorian and Edwardian buildings lining the Strand and the many crowded thoroughfares.

In the late nineteenth century, Yangon – then Rangoon – was known as the “Garden City of the East.” The British occupied the city in the wake of the Second Burmese War in 1852, after which it became the capital of British Burma in 1886. Under British administration, the city was transformed from a sleepy coastal town into a major commercial and political hub, with broad tree-lined streets and spacious gardens, such as the Cantonment Gardens. The General Hospital, the Secretariat Building, the Strand Hotel, Yangon University, the post office and telegraph exchanges, Yangon’s central train station, and the magnificent Trinity Anglican Church all date from this era. With the opening of the Suez Canal, demand for Burmese rice, rubber, teak, and other exports soared – enriching many British firms who monopolised the trade, and in the process fuelling Burmese resentment and nationalism.

These were halcyon days for the British Empire, and its poet of imperialism, Rudyard Kipling, put its ‘civilising’ ethos to verse. But whatever the benefits of Pax Britannica, British high-handedness, discrimination, and disrespect for local customs (the British refused to remove their shoes when visiting Buddhist temples!) angered the Burmese, who increasingly pushed for self-rule. The darker side of colonial rule is well satirised in George Orwell’s Burmese Days (my inflight reading), whose main character John Flory defines colonialism as “the lie that we're here to uplift our poor black brothers rather than to rob them.” When the Japanese promised to drive out the colonial powers and create a ‘Greater-Asian Co-prosperity Sphere,’ many Burmese were thus inclined to listen. However, after the invasion in 1942, it quickly became apparent that the Japanese had no intention of granting Burma its independence – so under Aung San, nationalists formed a coalition with the British to drive them out. Yangon was heavily damaged in the fighting.

Today the colonial era buildings are in varying states of decay, with the cumulative effects of monsoon rains, sweltering heat, and creeper vines crumbling the masonry and eroding the once proud facades. Most streets are unlit at night. Sidewalks are uneven and perilous – especially after dark. If you’re not careful, you can easily fall into a three-foot (one metre) deep hole filled with sewage. Decades of neglect and lack of investment have turned the city into the Havana of Asia, with old cars and overcrowded buses lumbering up the streets, crumbling infrastructure, and intermittent power outages. To its credit, the government is taking steps to preserve older buildings, rather than bulldoze them and build high-rises and shopping malls – as many other countries in the region have done. Yangon may bloom again.

There is great beauty here, from the piety of the monks in their red saffron robes, to the riot of colour in the Theingiyi markets. I spent many mornings strolling through the market, while waiting for word on meetings with the various Ministries. Here the market girls with their brightly coloured skirts sit in front of woven baskets and mats piled high with strong smelling Durians, sweet and juicy Jackfruit, Papayas, bananas, mangos, and the exotic and alien-looking red spikey Mamon Japones, with their white flesh. Further down the street, fishmongers set out trays of shrimp, squid, Rohu, Tilipia, and more exotic species I couldn’t begin to identify. Other streets are filled with stalls laden with Asian Eggplants, chilis, beans, bamboo shoots, gourds, and jengko. The morning air here is redolent with the sweet smell of overripe fruit, turmeric, and cooking oil from sidewalk stalls. Women carry baskets on their heads, men peddle bicycles loaded with sacks, and monks walk serenely through the crowds, carrying their rice bowls for alms. Nearby, across the Strand road, dozens of brightly painted boats, like Italian gondolas but with sputtering diesel engines, ferry passengers across the Yangon River.

Rising above the city, on a green knoll called Singaturra Hill, stands the majestic and awe-inspiring Shwedagon Pagoda, a 2,600 year old Buddhist stupa. It is the spiritual centre of the city and the heart of the nation. The Burmese are overwhelmingly Buddhist, but also follow astrological beliefs that originated in Hindu Brahmanism. My Burmese guide that day – a charming old woman in a red longyi – asked me my birthday. She consulted her book and announced that I was born on a Tuesday and led me to the Tuesday “planetary station,” where I discovered that my guardian spirit is a lion (cool!). I dipped a silver cup in the marble basin and poured water (five times) on the Buddha’s head. I silently asked him to smile upon our venture. The hill top marble courtyard is surrounded by many brightly decorated stupas, but the central stupa – rising to 326 feet – is the main attraction. Inside the stupa are relics of the Buddha, including eight strands of his hair. The entire massive structure is covered with tons of gold – between 10 and 50 tons, depending on whom you ask. Topping the stupa is the hti or umbrella, which is covered in gold and studded with diamonds. On the very top of the spire is a single 76 carat diamond.