On our last day – having missed out on the Grasshopper Yangon tour – Robin decides he can do the job just as well, using a phone app. We are staying downtown at Traders Hotel, close by the old colonial centre so, camera at the ready, we hit the streets.
The colonial buildings remain though most are in poor condition, but the
street life is vibrant. Flower sellers,
fresh and cooked food stalls, pavement tea shops, sugar cane juice crushed on
demand, ancient tricycle rickshaws, betel nut stalls, phone from here stalls –
linking into the overhead lines – shoe menders, gold and jewellery sellers, offal
and things I’d rather not think about stalls, all life is here.
We wander through the streets to Independence Square, marked by a needle
like monument guarded by chinthes and rising way into the sky. Many of the other buildings on Robin’s app
surround this square, including Yangon’s other golden pagoda, Sule.
By this stage I decide I must have carried out some meritorious deeds of
my own, which means I get to bang the gong, something I’ve been dying to do
since I first saw one. To make sure, I put donation money in a golden bird,
which flies heavenwards (ok – it’s on a pulley). Sounding the gong lets the
spirits know about your good deed, but it to be done in threes – just as well
as it takes me 3 goes to get a clear ringing sound.
Sticking to the colonial theme for our final meal, we head to House of
Memories a restored colonial house made out of teak, which served at General
Aung Sang’s office during WW2, when he was a Japanese officer. The father of Aung Sang Suu Kyi was a freedom
fighter prepared to take any action to drive the British out. He eventually changed sides and negotiated
the end to British rule, but was assassinated in the weeks leading up to the
handover. Who knows what would have
happened to this country if he had led it after independence.
It was a fitting end to an amazing journey through Burma.
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