Classmate taxi-toured me Yangon highlights

I was so happy to see my classmate since 1992 who lives in Yangon over two years. Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon, is a bustling cosmopolitan city in Myanmar (Burma). He taxi-toured me around town today to sites out of walking distances, fed me lavish meals, and helped me to get overnight bus tickets to other cities.

We walked along the Kandawgyi Lake and took photos in front of the reconstructed Karaweik Palace (now a restaurant), with the gleaming Shwedagon Pagoda as background (which is a 98m gilded stupa but under repair, so we skipped it).

We visited St Mary’s Cathedral, with its exterior of striking red bricks and colossal spires, is Myanmar’s largest Catholic cathedral. Beautifully maintained from 1909, the interior is resplendent with intricate patterns, enough to make it akin to the venerated cathedrals in European.

We discovered a little bit of Yangon’s up and coming art scene introduced by returned overseas students.

We walked around Bogyoke Aung San Market hosting more than 2,000 shops and boasting the biggest selection of Myanmar handicrafts and souvenir, saw bus loads of tourists, and my classmate bought me face-masks for coming dusty cities and local medical air refresher , but none of us getting any Burmese gams or handcrafts like other tourists.

We skipped the house of Aung San Suu Kyi (no entry), and visited the house of her father Aung San (national father) and the U Thant House instead. U Thant was a Burmese diplomat who acted as the third Secretary-General of the United Nations. He’s an extremely respected diplomat and helped avert the possibility of a nuclear war during the Cold War when he facilitated negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union. It is Jess known and we were the only group there.

I gave up riding around the city on the Yangon Circular Train, since one section is under repair and the weather is hot (96f; 34c).