Shwedagon Pagoda

After a very smooth flight from Zurich via Dubai I landed in the beautiful city of Yangon.
It used to be ruled by the Brits (loads of colonial buildings come from that era) but is now a melting pot of cultures and traditions (there are Chinese, Indian quarters and you will often find a Pagoda, a mosque, an Hindu and Chinese temple just next to each other).
I had chosen a small hostel in China Town. Whereas in Europe I rarely ever sleep in hostels anymore, Myanmar's hostels are extremely comfortable and convenient and you keep at least some privacy as the beds are set up like small rooms. After settling in I met this funny Japanese guy and we set off to have some street food close by. That's another thing I rarely did in Asia before - just stopping at random street food places to have dinner there. Maybe because the people I traveled with before just got me scared with stories of food poisoning. The food at one of the road side places was amazing - skewers with meat and shrimps, fish,... And this places always have an entertaining factor to it. When we ordered a beer the young woman took the order, then yelled at the next little restaurant next door, there a person forwarded the order to the next one, and it went on like that down the road. A few minutes later a guy who we have never seen before showed up with an ice cold bottle of Myanmar beer.

One thing you have to do while in Yangon is to hop onto the so called circle train, an old train that encircles the whole city during a three hour ride. It is used by locals to get from the center to the more remote neighborhoods. So on the next morning we bought a ticket for about 200 Kyat/approx. 10 Cent and went on the ride. It is like a journey through Burmese life: the passengers are everything from college students to stylish ladies to poor families with several kids. Once in a while a tourist enters. The train goes from the rather modern areas of Yangon, passes by slums, the backyards of small countryside houses before it returns to the hustle and bustle of the city.
With every station new sellers come in, offering drinks, grilled snacks and even toiletries.
Although most guides recommended to hop of after a few stops and then take a taxi back to the city, the trip has been so entertaining that we chose to take the whole ride.

Another highlight of the city is the Shwedagon Pagoda. It is the biggest and most sacred Buddhist pagoda in Myanmar, as it is believed to contain relics of the four previous Buddhas.

We almost skipped it as the heat, the new surrounding and my jet lag really paid it's tribute.
But somehow I could get myself together and my travel buddy ready too. Even the hostel staff encouraged us to see it before and after sunset as it will be a magic moment with all the nuns lighting candles. The local bus to get to the close by people's park is again something you need to get used to. Often the buses are donations from richer Asian countries and still have the destinations written on in that language. So for example one bus would have the final destination written on in Japanese. Usually and that makes it easier then again, the number of the bus line is sticked to the front window of the bus.
And google maps helps so much in these situations to just get an understanding where approximately you have to hop off, the closest stop to the pagoda was People's Park.
We walked through the park that is full of lights and families on their evening walk when the golden top of the pagoda appears before us and next to it the moon. But it looked like a half-eaten cookie. "Wow an eclipse" comes to my mind but then logic kicks in and I tell myself it would be impossible, we would have read about it,...
So we walk further and see this massive crowd of photographers with tele lenses all lined up before the pagoda. My travel buddy who did some internet search in the meantime said next to me: "oh it actually IS an ECLIPSE".
That moment stayed a joke throughout all our journey together, the Austrian and Japanese idiot standing in front of the most sacred and beautiful places in Asia with the eclipse right behind the golden roof of the pagoda and are wondering why the moon looks like a half-eaten cookie.

It was a quite remarkable moment seeing the moon disappear completely and then very very slowly showing up again.
On a night like that the pagoda seemed to be even more special with people, nuns and monks lighting incent sticks and candles, offering to the buddhas and praying.
What a beautiful moment to be in this beautiful country!Read more