More On Eating, Sleeping & Walking – Yangon

Yangon, Myanmar. Rangoon, Burma. Man, I’ve been scratching out this blog post in my head for days now. Burma’s been both horrible and phenomenal in equal proportion. I’ve laughed so hard I couldn’t speak, blinked because I was unsure that anything could really be so beautiful in the waking world, and also been totally terrified, disgusted and completely pissed off. It’s “a lot,” this place. It reminds me of a couple of my friendships I have in my life with people I could somehow never live without and also cannot stand in the same instant. I think they call that “love,” but who am I to say. I just know I believe that people (and countries) that make you feel so intensely are worth keeping around forever.

Burma is so shut off. The people are so extraordinarily open. It’s like somehow successfully cramming the cuisine of Le Bernadine into a can of Chef Boyardee. You open it to confusion. You think it’s an impossibility, yet you consume it and changes you. So, you dig in deeper into the can. You wonder if you will ever have anything that weird and wonderful ever again.

The Feel of Yangon:

Yangon has the visual charm of New Orleans and of Cuba, only better. Bright paint hues diluted to watercolor tones by time. Sage green. Sky blue. Mottled brown and yellow of a bird’s egg – all 6 stories high on cracked buildings with oxidized ironwork.

Flowers lean over balconies and stray cats climb around satellite dishes and duck behind drying laundry. Yangon’s got a body like Bangkok. Big and curvy, with infected blood. There’s a slightly sinister appeal to the moonlight, with battered woks sending up clouds of savory perfume, pulling people to tiny plastic stools.

There are teahouses. There’s ritual. Women toss buckets of dishwater into the light of early-morning streets as young novices walk past with alms bowls. Hawkers chant sales pitches in a language that sounds like Fraggles got drunk. It’s dreamy. It’s battling dire poverty and happy wallowing in it all the same. You could die here. You could also really learn to live.

Sleeping in Yangon:

It’s not all ‘dreamy Vincent Van Gogh.’ Or … maybe it is. Maybe accommodations here are just the part where Vince goes in the bathroom, high as balls on absinthe and delusional from the syphilis, and axe murders his own ear. Sleeping accommodations in Yangon are a horror show. There’s no air conditioning. You sweat like the 6^th round of a prizefight. If they tell you the room’s got air con, you had better hike the 15 flights of stairs and make sure before you sign. Cause you are just gonna hike back down to tell them it’s not working, and they are going to tell you there’s no other rooms available … anywhere. And there aren’t. Tourists are coming too fast. Hotels must be booked in advance.

I stayed at The Sunflower Hotel. The room looked like a leftover set design from The Shining. The bed had fleas. I turned on the air conditioner, and it oozed a liquid that smelled like fish sauce. I shut it off and lay down to die. Grand Total: $45/night

Then I stayed at White House Hotel. White House Hotel makes The Sunflower look like the Taj Mahal fucked The Plaza and birthed a room with a view of God’s face. I arrived at 9pm, sweaty, tired and carrying a massive backpack, plus a computer and a carry-on bag. I stared up at the start of 12 flights of stairs to my room.

“Can you get one of your guys to give me a hand with my backpack?” I asked the man behind the counter. He pointed towards a girl who weighed 20 pounds less than me and might, might have been 14. “She can carry it.” He was leering at us both.

“No she cannot. A man can carry it. I will not let a little girl carry my bag up those stairs.”

“It’s her or you.”

It was me. I cussed him under my breath in Cambodian, because I was too afraid to cuss him in English. (Chaly, honey, you would have been so proud).

I got upstairs and found a room with two walls made entirely from cardboard and duct tape. Duct tape was separating me from the next room. I’m a writer. You can’t imagine the things my mind can come up with in the darkness … alone … in a room made from duct tape. I could hear a man on the other side snoring. I lay there all night, considering a scenario where he punched through the wall, and I was forced to defend my vagina and my life with nothing but cheap souvenirs. Trinkets my friends would later weep over after my bizarre and unfortunate demise. There were more fleas. I won’t discuss the communal shower. I won’t. I can’t. Grand Total: $24/per night

I have no advice when booking a hotel in Yangon except to say do the Stairmaster before coming, bring cortisone cream, purchase a souvenir knife, and book in advance.

Eating in Yangon:

Reading the sleeping issues, you might think I would never set foot in Yangon again. Well, read on, because I would go back in a heartbeat just to eat. Just to walk.

I could go on for days about the food here, but I’ll just give you two quick “must try’s.” Then maybe don’t try them. Go explore. Every single meal I had in Burma was spectacular, from dirt-cheap Indian to white-tablecloth Shan delicacies.

The Green Elephant – it’s swanky and pricy, but the views from the teak terrace, with its paper umbrellas and sharply dressed waiters, is calming and transporting. Go for the pickled tea leaf and ginger salad. It’s their national dish, and this one was so good, I ate it twice.

Feel Myanmar – You sit outside at communal tables on funky white stools. Right after you arrive, your waiter tells you to stand up, and then leads you inside to some 40 dishes, spread out in silver tins. You point and pick and laugh with the serving girls as they push and pull you in directions. “Oh, beef meatballs, so spicy. So good for you. Corn. We make the best corn in all of Yangon. You must have it.”

It’s a delightful place with very cold beer. They stop serving at 8:30pm, however, so arrive in time.

Walking in Yangon:

Walk in Yangon. Wake up early … like 6:30 am … and just walk. It’s safe. People here love the tourists and will ask you a million wonderful questions in perfect English. There are streets devoted to bookbinding, others deal in old antique shaving knives. Or handmade slippers. Or spices sold by the kilogram. The men spit betel nut and play chess. The women wash laundry in tubs and playful smack their children.

Watch out for the pigeons! I have zero idea what’s up with the pigeon’s here, but holy hell, they love them. I’m going to go home and start a pigeon export business. New York to Yangon. Make a million dollars and move my ass to Bangkok. There are tiny Burmese children selling some cousin of a black-eyed pea. Locals buy small bowls and then hurl them at the pigeons. The pigeon’s then dutifully fly around the heads of monks as the light streams through the clouds, romance puddles in globs on the busted pavement, and your body collapses from the sheer beauty.

So, to sum up my opinion – Walk in Yangon. Eat in Yangon. Love Yangon, but don’t have sex in Yangon. No one should ever, ever get naked in one of Yangon’s hotel rooms.