Showing posts with label Myanmar. Show all posts
Maugham's Burma
Back in the day, The Strand Hotel in Rangoon was one of the most exclusive hotels in Burma and catered only to white clientele. It was actually started by the same folks who started the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, and it has much the same feel: Victorian design with a British-in-Asia vibe.
While we didn’t stay in The Strand Hotel, we did stop by for drinks during the day and were happy to find that the drinks were significantly cheaper than those in Singapore (which I guess any country’s alcohol would be cheaper than Singapore’s). We were so excited about these prices that we decided to return for happy hour and make a night of it: playing card games, revelling in the air-conditioning, and drinking cocktails. We then took a cab, which cost about $3 USD, back to a side street near our hotel to satisfy the late-night munchies.
It was an interesting juxtaposition: sitting in a grand hotel and walking the side streets of Myanmar. What a contrast it was - relaxing in the quiet, cool, clean colonial bar sipping cocktails versus navigating the loud, hectic, humid streets in search of satay and beer. I can imagine the likes of Maugham and Kipling experiencing a fine stay in Burma, living a completely separate existence from the locals just outside the walls of the hotel. However, the times are slowly changing, for within and without these walls, one can now find found foreigners and locals alike.
April in Review
Danang
,
Hanoi
,
Ho Chi Minh City
,
Month in Review
,
Myanmar
,
Saigon
,
Yangon
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This month I spent a day in Indonesia, a weekend in Myanmar, and a week in Vietnam. I am exhausted and a little broke, but I'm learning so much.
1st row: Mekong Delta, Reunification Day in Saigon, beach in Danang [Saigon & Danang, Vietnam]
2nd row: view from a coffee shop, street pho, selling flowers in the street [Hanoi, Vietnam]
3rd row: biking near Yangon University, Yangon from a rooftop, Ministers' Building [Yangon, Myanmar]
Biking in Myanmar
In Yangon, we decided to go biking for an afternoon. We went to a bike rental place, where a kind lady who ran the place was very excited about feeding us pizza. The bike rental cost about $12 USD, which is fairly expensive for Myanmar. We waited in the air conditioned room soaking up the free wifi. After some Instagram uploads and a few pieces of pizza later, we got on our bikes and navigated the busy streets of Yangon. Really, we all just followed my friend who was fearless amid traffic. I stayed near the back, terrified this was going to turn into one
of the many stories I’ve heard about biking fails. We rode around Yangon University where we found the library and recreational center. We also found a big tree that we were pretty excited about.
We then took a rest at a coffee shop to drink lime juice and dry the sweat off our faces. Did I mention it was hot in Yangon? Hotter than Singapore, which I did not think was possible. We all wore shorts, even if it was a bit immodest by Burmese standards.
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