Yangon in a day

Our last day in Yangon has been a long one and we have got a lot of sightseeing done. Lily reckons that we have done everything suggested in Lonely Planet's guide of Yangon, and God only knows what you'd do with yourself next without Lonely Planet telling you!...

We took a taxi for the day and headed off first thing for Thanlyin, a village half an hour away from the city. Here we took a boat to a temple on an artificial islet and then visited a Stupa onland. We saw a scaled- down version of the Shwedagon Pagoda that we visited last night, and then a red brick Catholic cathedral built in 1914 where a solitary nun was praying and, outside, a solitary cow was mooing. After this we stepped back in time to visit the country's first church, built in 1750 by Portuguese missionaries. Today all that remains are ruins, and the site has evidently been adopted by wayward youth, judging from the broken beer bottles and crude graffiti on the top of a tomb. Next, our taxi got a flat tire... But sooner or later we were back on the road to Yangon for lunch.

In the afternoon, with the sun mercilessly beating down on us, we headed out to see a vast reclining Buddha. It was an impressive and beautiful structure, particularly due to the soles of the feet, which, unexpectedly, were decorated with symbolic pictures and patterns. Our next stop was to see the home of Aung San Suu Kyi, where she was held under house arrest for over twenty years. There was little to see from the roadside where we stopped- only a high wall topped with barbed wire and stamped with posters of the of the Burmese National League for Democracy (NLF). In fact, it may well have been the NLF offices that we arrived at, and not actually Suu Kyi's house. We didn't stop to ask.

We paid a quick visit to Inya Lake and it's surrounding gardens, where couples shared romantic moments beneath parasols. At sunset we found ourselves at Kandawgi Lake, walking along the rickety bridge and enjoying the peaceful scenery. Here, Lily and I were followed by two young boys and a girl of twelve or thirteen, carrying  a new-born baby in a worryingly precarious manner. It was tragic to see that, probably just a few days into its life, this child was being used as a prop to help the family make money through begging. I gave them a little money after they begged to have their photo taken, and quickly regretted it.

As the evening drew in we found ourselves at a Chinese restaurant near the river, on the recommendation of a taxi driver, where we had a cheap meal of roasted duck, noodles and rice. And so passed our second day in Myanmar. Tomorrow morning, all of us besides Lily (who is travelling by herself to Bali), will fly to Bagan in Central Myanmar to see ancient temples built in the 11th-13th centuries. In fact, Shu-Fang and May have just called by my room to let me know that we will leave the hotel at 4.30am. There really is no rest for the wicked.