This City Is Hot: Yangon, Myanmar

Arriving in Yangon is like getting hit in the face with a sticky wet towel.

Even arriving at night did not ease the transition from Central Asia’s perfect temperate autumn weather to the debilitating heat of southern Myanmar. The humidity hangs in the air in thick layers. Your skin immediately becomes prickly with beads of moisture. Your limbs become listless, not wanting to push against the invisible wall of fire and feeling the need to conserve energy.

Just before arriving in Yangon, Michael had started reading George Orwell’s Burmese Days (which many souvenir salespeople would try to sell to us and other tourists over the next few weeks). For the first few chapters of this book about colonial Burma, it seemed that all Orwell writes about is how hot it is. We had thought that this was simply a helpful literary device to talk about the oppression of English imperialism, but it turns out it was not an exaggeration: Yangon is freakin’ hot. And we hadn’t even come during the hottest time of year.

When we first arrived in our Yangon guesthouse, the air conditioner in our room did not turn on. We gave each other sideward glances as the guesthouse manager tried to turn it on with no success, thinking that we would need to go find another place at 11pm if there was not going to be AC in that room. Luckily, it ended up just being a battery issue with the remote control, and for several hours that night, we were able to enjoy some coolness and sleep. But, the theme of heat would continue to linger throughout our entire time in Myanmar.

In addition to being hot, Yangon is also crazy. As the British friends we had met in Uzbekistan told us, “It’s f*@%ing mental!” and now, we kind of get why. A bustling Southeast Asian city of over seven million people, everything about Yangon is an assault on your senses.

The smell of curries and steaming noodles float from the street food carts and mix with the smell of rainwater running through storm drains and sewers, which are often open when a piece of concrete goes missing. Downtown alongside the Yangon River, piles of fermenting fruit and fish baking in the sun fill the outdoor markets and your nostrils.

The sounds of competing Buddhist and Muslim chants over public loudspeakers, as well as general music and cymbals, constantly fill the streets, whether playing loudly from locals’ stores or from a parade requesting donations and offerings for the local monastery (the music is often so loud that the speakers are completely blown out, turning any potentially good music or chant into a distorted, muffled mess of noise). On top of all this is a cacophony of car horns. We learned that the honking is not angry road rage, but actually a necessary safety precaution. Since they drive on the right side of the road like in the U.S., but with British-style cars with the driver seated on the right, drivers basically can’t see when a car is passing them on the left. As such, a passing car honks to announce its presence. One honk is the passing signal; two honks is to praise Buddha when they pass a temple (which is practically every block); three honks, the White Walkers are coming.

Surprisingly, one thing we did not hear in Yangon, but had expected to encounter, was motorbikes. Motorbikes are the main mode of transportation for most of Southeast Asia, so we had anticipated a chaotic web of them here. It turns out that motorbikes, as well as tuk tuks, are banned within Yangon’s city limits. The story goes that a general during the military junta years lost his son in a motorbike accident, so he then proceeded to ban all bikes from the city, which still holds today (though motorbikes are fully alive and used throughout the rest of Myanmar); it’s a useful story to understand the power of the military.

The sights are colorful and busy everywhere you glance. First of all, the people paint a colorful and stimulating visual as men and women in all directions wear vibrant longyis and thanaka, traditional clothing and make-up that are unique to Myanmar. The longyi is a long sheet of thick cloth wrapped around the waist like a wrap skirt or sarong; certain patterns are reserved for men and women, and they range from everyday plain plaid to patterns of exquisite embroidery and flowers for a special visit to the temple. Thanaka is functional make-up made from the ground bark of trees and serves as both cosmetics and sunscreen for both genders; it is applied in pretty patterns across the face and arms, creating prominent yellow designs and circles across their skin.

Behind the people, sights continue to impress: at eye-level, weathered but beautiful colonial-era buildings covered in plant growth and balconies of drying laundry are strung up with satellite dishes and coils of electrical wires. Looking up, gold-topped pagodas in every neighborhood gleam, many lit up with blinking psychedelic lights at night to represent Buddha’s enlightenment. And looking down, splatters of bright red stains dot the roads and concrete sidewalks in what look like blood drops everywhere; these, along with the red-stained lips and rotten teeth of many Myanmar people (mostly men), are the result of widespread chewing of the betel (areca) nut, which is mixed with slake lime, tobacco, and spices, and wrapped in a betel leaf. Similar to chewing tobacco, chewers need to spit out a sludge that develops as they chew, and while some spit into bags, many just do so onto the ground, leaving red stains all over the streets. Unfortunately, this addictive and cancer-causing habit has been prevalent in Myanmar for centuries as part of traditions and rituals, so it is hard to change the social attitudes toward it.

The tastes of Burmese food were a welcome joy after seven weeks of eating Central Asian rice pilaf and dumplings (as good and comforting as they were). We were tickled by the diverse options of so many types of noodles, green vegetables, oily curries, green vegetables, tea leaf salads, and green vegetables. The tea leaf salad from San Francisco’s multiple popular Burmese restaurants is one of our favorite meals, and we are glad to report that they are actually quite similar to the real thing in Myanmar! The Burmese curries in the U.S., however, are quite different, since in Myanmar, they are more oily, more spicy, and less creamy. Our taste buds were cautious, but delightfully satisfied.

Still, nothing compared to the sense of feeling the heat. Wherever we went, it became the center of focus.

Walking around the parks near Independence Monument and the colonial government buildings downtown, we saw entire families and groups of friends gathered under trees, sitting there fanning themselves, suffering just as we were. At the city’s busy Bogyoke Aung San Market, endless stalls selling jade, gold, and longyis got lost in the background as we mostly searched for iced smoothies or cold coconuts to drink. Restaurant choices were made based on which sported both the shortest walk and best air conditioning (reminding Michael of his New Orleans summer), though we were impressed with the handful of nice modern Burmese fusion restaurants in downtown Yangon. And in the Buddhist temples, locals would stay for hours, some sprawled out—even full on sleeping—across the cool marble floors, others just playing on their cell phones or chatting with each other in the covered altar rooms alongside statues of Buddha—all with the goal of getting out of the heat. It was actually kind of neat the way the temples operated as public spaces; it’s free for locals, so while folks certainly came to pray and pay respects, they also just wanted to hang out and stay cool in a beautiful place.

But then, as sudden as the electrical blackouts that came through unexpectedly, turning off lights and AC (which happened everyday we were in Yangon, whether it was in our guest house or at a nice restaurant), wild thunderous rainstorms would fill the skies without warning in the afternoons, cooling the air and bringing some life back to the streets. That seemed to be the signal for people to come back out and actually start functioning for the day in the slightly-cooler temperatures (still 95 degrees F, but it was better than the 105 F). The rainwater would quickly dry, and food vendors would then set up their mini plastic chairs and tables in the streets, blocking parking spots and traffic, and men would fill the seats to eat and drink tea. Informal markets would unfold, with merchants placing out a tarp on the red-stained sidewalks and laying out their fish or vegetables for sale.

Accordingly, the stunning Shwedagon Pagoda, located in the center of Yangon, lit up with life most prominently after sunset. We were lucky to visit at peak twilight hour and witnessed thousands of Buddhists and visitors marveling at the beautiful gold-topped zedi (“stupa” in Myanmar). And gold-topped it was: 27 metric tons of gold leaf cover the tall stupa. It was a beautiful site to watch the setting sun glisten off the gilded tower, and even more beautiful for the air to start to cool off and feel human again. The stupa is quite sacred, as it is believed that a strand of Buddha’s hair is enshrined inside the structure, making it one of the holiest sites in the country for Buddhists. As we were there during a holiday weekend, it was very busy with local tourists, allowing us the opportunity to observe the local customs in what may have otherwise felt like a touristy site.

Surprisingly, despite the fact that life only started up after the rains in the afternoon, the city died down rather quickly by nighttime. Walking around at night was dark and eerily quiet. We heard that the people are used to going to bed soon after dark—the lingering impact of decades of imposed curfews during military rule and the rolling blackouts that continue to this day. A night scene of restaurants and bars is starting to emerge in the urban areas, but it is still limited and will likely grow and change dramatically over the next ten years as the country continues to modernize.

Thus, without any tuk tuks around and few restaurants nearby open for dinner, we often grabbed a Grab (Uber in Southeast Asia) to go to dinner. One night, we headed to the House of Memories, a touristy but historical restaurant inside Aung San’s old house/office. Aung San is the father of the independence movement in Burma, helping expel the British in 1948. Tragically, he did not live to see his successes; he was assassinated just six months before Burma achieved its independence. But he left behind a two-year-old daughter, Suu Kyi, who would grow up to be the leader of the democracy movement against military rule and the current Prime Minister of the country. It’s hard to pin down how we should feel about Suu Kyi. A Nobel Prize Laureate and national hero for her work in establishing a democracy—for which she suffered 15 years under house arrest—she is also currently embroiled in controversy over her lack of action in the ongoing Rohingya genocide by the military. We wish we could understand more about what is going on, but Myanmar people can go to prison for talking about politics to foreigners, so there wasn’t much discussion to be had. As such, we have little information to add to what we’ve read in western news outlets. What we do know is that the situation is extremely complicated, with few right answers: trying to govern more than one hundred different ethnic groups—many with their own historical empires, languages, and customs in their own lands; many who never wanted to be part of a united Burma; many who continue to fight an active civil war for independence today, often funded by opium money (Myanmar is the world’s second-highest producer of opium, after Afghanistan)—is difficult and fraught, and not a job we would covet.

We did have one semi-insider view from Karen’s friend from grad school, Tomo, who has lived in Myanmar for about two years and with whom we met up in Yangon. From him, we got the feeling that, despite the continued political challenges facing the country, the business community feels like it is mostly headed in the right direction. Since the country started opening up to the world over the past several years (the first free elections took place only in 2015), foreign investment is up, and new high-rises dot the Yangon skyline. From a trendy rooftop bar, Tomo told us about his new fintech startup, Shwedingar (meaning “Gold Coin”), a website and app that teaches financial and banking literacy for those with little exposure, and provides recommendations for basic financial products such as bank accounts, credit cards, loan products, and investment opportunities (if you can read Myanmar, check it out at https://shwedingar.com/!). As financial access is one of the most important tenets of inclusive development (and something that Karen has worked on in various ways both abroad and in the U.S.), we were excited to hear our friend creating this platform, which he only launched several months ago. Myanmar is a good place for a tech startup; unlike San Francisco, where engineers make hundreds of thousands of dollars in their first job out of college while they can’t even do their own laundry, Tomo’s employees make a locally competitive salary of only $150 USD a month. (On the “side,” Tomo also works on a ginger export startup, his first business in Myanmar and the thing that’s kept him there these two years—more on that one in a later post to come, when we go visit the ginger farms!)

After spending a few days in Yangon and trying to understand its landscape, we left feeling that despite the physical challenges, despite the ongoing political and institutional issues, and despite the heat, Myanmar is getting hot.

Karen & Michael

Yangon, Myanmar, October 26-28, 2019