Yangon – Little India

The last part of my street walk took me into Little India. It’s directly to the west of Sule Paya. It’s a pretty challenging display of real Burmese life. There were people everywhere buying food, having lunch, selling toasters. The whole range of Burmese life was on display for the world to see.


It wasn’t just reserved for Indians either. The full range of Burmese people were milling about. The foot paths were narrow, but this didn’t stop people setting up stalls on both sides. It made negotiating the streets rather difficult. It was especially hard when people had food laid out on the ground. I don’t think they’d take very kindly to me stomping on it.

Everywhere, there was fresh fruit for sale. There was lots of mangos, mangosteens, rambutans, longans and even the occasional apple. It was a feast of fruit.

For some reason, there was also a huge amount of office supplies for sale. Sticky tape, books, folders, pens, the works. I’m guessing there was a school nearby.

Mashed in with the fruit sellers were micro hawkers selling all manner of street food. The most unsettling food was these little steam boat stalls. They had a large bubbling pot. Around the edge, were arranged skewers with miscellaneous meat products on them. People would come over, sit down, dip their entrails in the soup and munch away quite happily. It seemed to be mostly intestines, but there were quite a few other body parts not so easy to identify. No, I didn’t try any.


I wanted to head to the big shopping centre, so I turned at random down a street and headed north. I purposely chose the dodgiest looking street I could find and was soon rewarded. About 10 metres down the road, the asphalt disappeared to be replaced by stinky black mud. People were walking ever so carefully through it, trying to avoid the deepest patches. This didn’t stop the shop keepers, however, they still piled their goods for sale on top of the mud. Well, on top of bowls on top of the mud.


There were even a few meat sellers. The meat was on trays about half a metre from the stinking mud. It was all very primal and more than a little disturbing. On the other hand, there was loads of vegetables for sale, all of which looked rather fresh and tasty, so at least the locals are eating well!

Walking through the streets, I was also exposed to a day to day life of the Myanmar people. All over the city, there were manned telephone stands. People obviously don’t have telephones in their houses, so they wander out on the street to use a phone there. The government is obviously unable to provide proper phone booths, so people have gone in to business renting out the phones. Very innovative, but kind of stupid that the government can’t supply phone booths!

Also odd, were the generators that were all over the city. The country’s electricity grid is obviously not reliable, so people have gone out and bought massive electricity generators and installed them themselves. Indeed, even in my hotel there were not infrequent black outs. The government obviously has enough money to build a whole new capital city, but not enough for a few power stations.


Another interesting site were people all over the city sitting behind desks with type writers. People go to them, dictate the message they wish to send, then the typist types it out. This is a great service for people who need to send official letters, but don’t have a printer or type writer at home. If the service is needed because people can’t read though, then that’s a bit sad.

What I found funniest though, was the guys renting out bathroom scales. For a small fee, you stand on the scales and find out your weight. If someone can make a living doing this, then you know your economy is pretty screwed.

I really enjoyed walking through Little India. At times, it was completely mental, but isn’t that the best sort of place to visit?