Myanmar Travel: Yangon’s Bygone Allure

  • The upper terrace of the 10th-century Shwedagon Pagoda.

    The upper terrace of the 10th-century Shwedagon Pagoda.

  • The gilded stupa of Shwedagon.

    The gilded stupa of Shwedagon.

  • Striking up a football game at dusk

    Striking up a football game at dusk

  • The Neoclassical facade of The Strand, a landmark 1901 hotel in the heart of Yangon.

    The Neoclassical facade of The Strand, a landmark 1901 hotel in the heart of Yangon.

  • A typical street scene.

    A typical street scene.

  • The Strand’s elegant fine-dining restaurant.

    The Strand’s elegant fine-dining restaurant.

  • Burmese-style high tea at The Strand

    Burmese-style high tea at The Strand

  • Kitchen staff at Felix Eppisser’s Le Planteur restaurant.

    Kitchen staff at Felix Eppisser’s Le Planteur restaurant.

  • One of the classic cars used for “colonial” transfers by Le Planteur restaurant.

    One of the classic cars used for “colonial” transfers by Le Planteur restaurant.

  • A vintage elevator at The Strand.

    A vintage elevator at The Strand.

  • Padonmar restaurant.

    Padonmar restaurant.

  • A teak walkway leads through tropical gardens to the entrance of the Governor’s Residence, a colonial mansion–turned-hotel in the diplomatic quarter.

    A teak walkway leads through tropical gardens to the entrance of the Governor’s Residence, a colonial mansion–turned-hotel in the diplomatic quarter.

  • Looking south along Sule Pagoda Road in downtown Yangon, whose gridded streets are a breeze to navigate by foot.

    Looking south along Sule Pagoda Road in downtown Yangon, whose gridded streets are a breeze to navigate by foot.

  • Yangon’s High Court building seen from Maha Bandula Park.

    Yangon’s High Court building seen from Maha Bandula Park.

  • Yangon’s City Hall.

    Yangon’s City Hall.

  • A room at the Governor’s Residence.

    A room at the Governor’s Residence.

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My main dish, a mutton curry with potatoes, was brought out by the owner, a big, genial man named Sonny Aung Khin. The curry was a complex blend of powerful flavors so richly concentrated that it was barely liquid. I noted that it wasn’t as oily as the curries I had tasted in the cafés downtown, and Khin explained that his restaurant accommodated the taste of foreign guests by reducing the amount of oil. “But that’s actually not authentic,” he added, apologetically. “In Burmese homes, when company comes we make the food extra oily, to show that we can afford it. If the dish is dry, people will think you are either poor or stingy.” Khin, for one, is sanguine about his country’s prospects. “This is the new Myanmar,” he said, smiling with a hint of pride.

One visible change in Yangon, all to the good, is the number of fine new restaurants that have opened here. The most luxurious of all is Le Planteur, which occupies a wooded estate atop a hill not far from the Shwedagon. The restaurant opened on New Year’s Day 2011, the creation of Swiss restaurateur Felix Eppisser and his wife, Lucia, who previously operated a two-Michelin-starred restaurant in Zurich called Spice.

Eppisser ordered my lunch: marinated salmon with wasabi mousse, truffle ravioli covered in a lacy-light foam of truffled butter, a big Wagyu steak, a well-endowed cheese trolley (which included a fine, dense Burmese pavé), and finally cappuccino “Swiss style”—a layered parfait of frozen vanilla mousse, mocha ice cream, chocolate sauce, and Chantilly. The portions at Le Planteur are hefty for haute cuisine; the prices are not, relatively speaking. Eppisser explained, “Our customers demand big portions, and for us the most important thing is that every diner leaves satisfied and happy.” Then he packed me into the backseat of a black 1947 Vauxhall sedan, which carried me back to the Governor’s Residence in suitable style.

My visit to Yangon ended with an evening of traditional puppet theater. The Htwe Oo Myanmar company is a family business founded by Khin Maung Htwe, who grew up in the vegetable market of Yangon, raised by a widowed mother who took him to see the puppet show every week when he was a boy. Htwe, his wife, and their 14-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son are the principal puppeteers. Their shows are enchanting, or at any rate revolve around tales of magical enchantment peopled by star-crossed lovers, mischievous sorcerers, and princes who have lost their kingdoms, all clad in brilliantly colored silk costumes that glitter with sequins and beads.

Htwe launched his company after he won a government-sponsored arts competition in 1993. By then, traditional Burmese puppet theater, one of the country’s main forms of mass entertainment for at least 500 years,  had all but disappeared. The survival of the genre remains precarious, depending upon support from abroad. In September, Htwe Oo Myanmar went on its fifth European tour, with appearances in Germany, Holland, and the 50th-anniversary season of the World Festival of Marionette Theater in Charleville-Mézières, France. Htwe’s besotted love of the theater glows around him like an aura. He explained, “I don’t want my children to go abroad, so I created my company, which they can inherit and carry on.”

As I said, discussions of Myanmar always turn back to the nation’s perennial political   crisis. The country might seem to be a proof of Alphonse Karr’s famous epigram: The more things change, the more they stay the same. The regime changed the country’s name; it changed its own name from the SLORC to the State Peace and Development Council, in 1997; they built a new capital, and in 2010 they even adopted a new flag. Yet the distribution of power remains fundamentally unaltered.

However, Karr’s paradox might be turned on its head: the longer things stay the same, the more the country changes. The changes aren’t all visible, but they’re surely taking place. On my first visit to Myanmar 20 years ago, the atmosphere of fear—ordinary people’s fear of meeting with harm from their own government—was palpable, inescapable. With each subsequent visit, I have sensed that while the fear is still there, it is gradually being neutralized by a rising sense of confidence, or a growing certainty that the country will outlive its troubles. People are rescuing old houses, opening new restaurants, and founding theater troupes as a legacy for their children.

For an Asian city, Yangon is young, but it feels as enduring as any ancient metropolis. Perhaps because it is sheltered by the powerful numen of the Shwedagon, perhaps because the anonymity of the big city gives its citizens a measure of freedom, its streets flow with a vitality that is gathering an inner strength.

THE DETAILS:

Yangon

Getting There
Silk Air (silkair.com) operates twice-daily flights between Singapore and Yangon throughout the week. From Bangkok, AirAsia (airasia.com) and Thai Airways (thaiairways.com) both have regular Yangon services.

When to Go
Southern Myanmar’s mildest weather occurs between November and February; from March to May, Yangon can be unbearably hot.

Where to Stay
The Strand: 92 Strand Rd.; 95-1/243-377; ghmhotels.com; doubles from US$200.
The Governor’s Residence: 35 Taw Win Rd., Dagon; 95-1/ 229-860; governorsresidence.com; doubles from US$205.

Where to Eat
Le Planteur: 22 Kaba Aye Pagoda, Bahan; 95-1/541-997.
Padonmar: 105 Kha Yae Pin Rd., Dagon; 95-1/538-895.

Before You Go
For issues and updates related to Myanmar’s political situation, visit the websites of the Burma Campaign (burmacampaign.org.uk) and the Free Burma Coalition (freeburmacoalition.org).

Originally appeared in the December 2011/January 2012 print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Yangon’s Bygone Allure”)

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