Yangon - First Impressions

I'm off to a good start. There is a brand new airport in Yangon. So new, that the arrivals hall is open, but the departures hall won't be open for a month or so. Getting through customs and immigration was relatively straight forward. The immigration people still needed two people to handle each passport, but they were all young people who smiled a lot. In most strange Asian countries, you get the crusty old guard revolutionaries manning the immigration desk. The Myanmar government is obviously out to impress!


I was also a bit stressed about customs. The Lonely Planet guide says directly that if you bring a laptop or mobile phone into the country, then the customs people will confiscate it until you leave. I was a bit stressed as I had both! Luckily, young people were also manning customs, so I breezed through. In the arrivals hall, there's a handy taxi counter, so 2 minutes later, I was in a car and on my way to the hotel. Excellent!

The first thing I noticed as being uniquely Burmese, is that all the guys wear dresses! Well, sarong type things called Longyi. It's not just the old people either - young guys were in dresses as well. It was so uniform, I'm guessing it's a government mandate that people walking on streets in front of tourists must wear sarongs. Very odd.

The women are not to be left out of the fashion sense either. A lot of women wear the traditional makeup called thanakha. It’s made from the bark of a local tree and is a combination of sunscreen and perfume. To me, it looked likes like wet chalk rubbed all over their face. It’s very distinctive and you won’t see it in any other country!


The other thing that is unique to Myanmar is the ultra dodgy taxis. They're all about a million years old and have lots of bits missing. Some only have 2 windows, others have cracked windscreens. All very dodgy. At least they're better than the buses. They're just small trucks with a few seats welded to the back. Being a poor country, there's a million people inside as well as about 10 people hanging off the back of the truck. Crazy stuff.

Just as I was laughing at the taxis and buses, I spotted another vehicle on the side of the road. A police van. It looked like they were transferring prisoners from one place to another. The van had a row of really small windows, covered in bars. I could see inside the van and it was jammed even tighter than the buses. Outside, the wives of the inmates were reaching up to their husbands inside for one last touch before they were carted off to who knows where. This was a bit sobering and not something I was prepared for.

It was an interesting introduction to the country and augers well for an interesting visit.