Our last stop in Myanmar was Yangon, and we were only there 2 nights due to horrible air pollution, and the fact that our visa was about to expire.
Of course we went to the famous Shwedagon Pagoda, which is almost 100m tall, and covered an estimated $3billion USD(!!!) worth of with gold, diamonds, rubies, and other precious stones. It was quite impressive indeed.
We also did a guided tour on the Yangon circular line train that included a stop at a huge vegetable/fruit market. You’ll find several photos of that in the link below.
My first impression of Yangon was that reminded me more of a large, dense, western city compared to anywhere else in Southeast Asia. It was the first city we went to where I saw large numbers of pedestrians and buses. The reason for this is that motorbikes are banned in the city limits. In all other cities we’ve visited on this trip, everyone just rides a motorbike to get around, even if they are only going a couple blocks. Motorbikes have been banned in Yangon since 2003, and no one seems quite sure why the ban started, but this article describes the popular theories.
Photos from Yangon are here.
