We took a VIP bus to Yangon from Mawlamyine, and my goodness, what a difference it made! Reclining seats, powerful air conditioning, and a relatively smooth ride. We felt spoiled! Though we were dropped off at the bus station over an hour away from downtown Yangon, so we still had to take an overpriced taxi ride to our hotel. But at least our driver was nice.

I had travelled to Yangon in 2009, and it is incredible how much the city has changed in the past few years. Previously, there were not many cars on the road aside from taxis, old breaking down busses, and crappy pick up trucks overflowing with people in the back. Now, Yangon is full of nicer, newer cars and faces a major traffic problem. The previously very frequent power outages have diminished, though they still occur occasionally. The street food stalls that previously sold mainly brains, cartilidge, liver, and other unwanted meat products have been largely replaced by significantly better bbq skewers. The streets downtown are overflowing with a variety of fresh fruit and fish for sale. The popular tourist street went from having 2 or 3 “bars” to being crammed full of bars, meat skewer stalls, and restaurants. It was amazing and overwhelming.

We spent our first full day in Yangon wandering around and exploring the market. We found the tailoring section of the market with seamstresses still using foot powered sewing machines. More reliable than counting on electricity in Myanmar, I suppose.

   
   
We had dinner at a popular Shan noodle restaurant downtown, 999 Shan Noodle, before heading to 19th street, the bar street, for 75 cent mojitos.

The next day we set off early to explore the Shwedagon pagoda before the midday heat set in. I previously didn’t want to pay the entrance fee, so I hadn’t really seen much of the pagoda aside from the towering golden structure that can be seen around the city, but this time we paid and it was definitely worth it. Few tourists were around, and many Myanmar families were so happy to get to see this important religious site. 

We spent quite some time trying to find somewhere to eat after visiting the pagoda, and eventually ended up at a cafeteria style Myanmar restaurant called Feel Myanmar that seemed popular. We tried grilled aubergine salad, which was excellent, as well as a not as impressive mutton curry and a bunch of raw veggies and spicy sauce on the side.

We spent the rest of the afternoon hiding out from the heat, and went out at dinner time to  a restaurant set in an old colonial building, named Monsoon. It was a nice setting for dinner, and we had another lovely tea leaves salad and some sort of curry.

Despite trying so many restaurants in Yangon, my favorite was from our last night in town,  another popular noodle restaurant called Aung Mingalar. They had a few varieties of Shan noodle dishes, so we got two kinds, sticky noodles and a regular version, as well as a plate of homemade dumplings. The dumplings were amazing, served stuck together in one sheet  – they were so fresh and different from the standard frozen dumplings we seem to get everywhere else. It was surprising to find so many delicious restaurants in Yangon. While they took some time and research to find, once we found the expat corner of the city we were able to find a variety of Myanmar food from various parts of the country. 

After we checked out on the last day, we had an afternoon to kill before heading to the bus terminal for our overnight bus to Bagan. We spent that time eating at a nicely air conditioned ramen noodle restaurant and wandered the streets looking at the junk people were selling near the Sule Pagoda downtown. I have been trying to collect cookbooks from each country we visit, and I found the following gem while we were walking around: 

 
After shopping around and getting sweaty in the afternoon heat, we took a quick shower at our hotel and headed to the bus station. With all of the traffic in Yangon, it took over an hour and a half to go about 19km to the bus station, so we were glad we left early. We got onto our comfy bus run by JJ Express with large reclining seats and only 3 seats per row, rather than the typical two seats on each side of the aisle. Next stop, Bagan!