Yangon.
A vibrant city, used to be the capital city of Myanmar, is packed with a lot of beautiful sights which undoubtedly will blow your mind. As Myanmar has moved its capital city to Naypyidaw, Yangon still remains as a busy and hectic city. When I arrived at Yangon, the first thing I noticed was the way people driving their cars or vehicles. For example, most of the cars in Yangon are equipped with right-side steering, and guess what, they drive in a right-side steering mode but also in right lane! How unbelievable it is. Usually, in Indonesia, people drive in right-side steering as well but we use left lane when we drive our cars. What is going on in Yangon in terms of the way people drive cars is quite interesting!
We stayed at Novotel Yangon Max for 4 days 3 nights. It is located in Pyay Road and it takes about 35 minutes from Yangon airport. We stayed over in Deluxe Room on eighth (8th) floor and we got an amazing view overlooking to Shwedagon Pagoda. The hotel is facilitated with sophisticated facilities and equipped with swimming pool, restaurants, tennis court, fitness centre, cafe, and many more. The fare we paid was included breakfast and the breakfast was amazing. They serve extensive selection of foods during breakfast, for your information the breakfast is served at The Square restaurant. If you wish to have your dinner in the restaurants inside the hotel, they also have some promotions. There is also a chinese restaurant located inside Novotel. According to my experience, I spent 25 USD for buffet dinner (all you can eat) on my first night and on the second night I paid 35 USD for seafood buffet dinner (all you can eat). I had my dinner at The Square restaurant, the same location to enjoy breakfast. For further information about Novotel Yangon Max, you can jump into its website www.novotel.com/Yangon or you can just go straightaway to google. I would say it is a very recommended hotel in Yangon and you will be satisfied by its excellent and top-notch services.
So, in the afternoon we left the hotel and took a taxi ride to Sule Pagoda. It took us about 20 minutes from hotel to Sule Pagoda and we paid 5,000 kyats for taxi fee. Sule Pagoda was the first spot we came to stop by. The entrance fee is 3,000 kyats and we can pay 1,000 kyats for shoes or sandals storage in the entrance gate. Then, we entered Sule Pagoda and it was just so amazing! It is not a huge place. The best way to enjoy it is by going around in circle to witness the beauty of the Pagoda as Sule Pagoda is situated in a circular spot keeping up with the hustle and bustle of the city.
Nearby Sule Pagoda, just adjacent to it, there is Maha Bandula Garden. This garden seems like a place where locals are hanging out and spending their times with friends, relatives, colleagues, or families. A bunch of people laying down or sitting on the grass as I stepped on to that place. There are some food sellers and taxis around the garden. Some little girls are also seemed to reach out some tourists and offer something like postcard as well as taking them into conversation. There was one girl named Kim talking to me and her english speaking skill is so great! I bought 20 postcards from her and it cost me 10,000 kyats.
As the sun was going down, I continued our trip straightaway to Shwedagon Pagoda. We took a taxi ride, paid 3,000 kyats, and it took us roughly 15 minutes to Shwedagon Pagoda from Sule Pagoda. Shwedagon Pagoda is incredibly huge! The entrance fee is 8,000 kyat and includes map as well. People are suggested to wear long fabric or saroong or longyi (Burmese word for this outfit). Rent for long fabric is also available near the entrance gate if by chance you do not bring it with you.
As I stepped down my barefoot onto this place, I was so captivated and blown away when I gazed out across Shwedagon Pagoda. It is literally such a stunning and magical place. I could not stop whispering to myself of how every single details of this place got me speechless. I know that words do not even do a justice to describe how perfectly beautiful Shwedagon Pagoda is. There were a lot, yes a lot, of people going around Shwedagon Pagoda. Some were locals, who intended to worship the Gods or just hang around with families or friends, some were tourists who busy taking some photographs while enjoying the charm of this place at the same time. I spent 3 hours there, right before the sunset until the moon came out.
The best times during a day to visit Shwedagon Pagoda are in the morning and in the late afternoon. If you come in the mid-afternoon, it will be probably too hot as the sun is shining at its best and you could not bear to walk around with barefoot because the ground feels like burning hot. Another information, if you wish, you could also hire a guide there. It costs you around 10,000 – 15,000 kyats for 1 – 1,5 hours session.
I was told by my guide there that we can overlook to shining diamond (as shown in picture below) at top of pagoda and it turns out to change colours when we change position and move slightly a bit. I saw it was turning colours into red, green, yellow, orange, and so on when I was moving slightly backward, forward, to the left, and to the right.
So, here is a look of long fabric or saroong that I wore for my whole trip in Yangon. I brought this from Bali.
Well, that’s all for this article. I hope you do enjoy reading this. I will see you on my next article which will be posted very soon!
Cheers!
Going, Capturing, Sharing | By Odika Bayu 
Leave a comment