Yangon

Yangon is not a beach city. It sits on the broad, silt-brown Yangon River well inland from the Andaman Sea, and the water around the city is not for swimming. The nearest proper beaches, Chaung Tha and Ngwe Saung on the Bay of Bengal coast, are a long day's drive away and work as a separate trip of several nights, not an outing from the city. In Yangon itself, a swim means a hotel pool.

Eating in Yangon starts in the tea shops: plastic stools, sweet milky tea, samosas, palata flatbreads and bowls of mohinga, the fish and rice-noodle soup that is the national breakfast. Burmese cooking is its own thing, with oily, slow-cooked curries served with a spread of side dishes, the fermented tea-leaf salad called laphet thoke, and noodle dishes such as Shan noodles and ohn no khauk swe. Street stalls line the downtown grid from early morning.

The city's Indian and Chinese quarters add biryani, dosa and dim sum, and 19th Street in Chinatown fills each evening with barbecue skewers and draught beer. Above that, the choice of polished restaurants is small, and wine and cocktails are an afterthought. It suits curious eaters rather than those after refinement.

The Shwedagon Pagoda is the reason Yangon belongs on any itinerary: a gilded stupa nearly 100m tall on a hill above the city, ringed by shrines, bells and pavilions, and at its best at dusk when families come to pray and walk the marble terrace barefoot. The Sule Pagoda anchors the downtown grid, Botataung stands by the river with a hollow, mirrored interior, and Chaukhtatgyi holds a huge reclining Buddha.

Downtown also keeps one of the largest sets of colonial-era buildings in Southeast Asia: the vast brick Secretariat, the High Court, the Strand riverfront, old banks and churches, many of them weathered and leaning. The National Museum and smaller collections are modest. Two or three days cover it well.

Going out in Yangon is low-key. The typical evening is a draught beer at a 'beer station', an open-fronted hall with football on the screens, or a table on 19th Street in Chinatown among grilled skewers and crowds. A handful of hotel bars, rooftop terraces and a few small clubs cater to visitors and well-off locals. Streets empty early and most of the city is quiet well before midnight; nobody comes here for the nights.

Yangon lies on flat, low delta land, and the outdoors within reach is mostly the city's own green spaces. Kandawgyi Lake has a boardwalk and views of the Shwedagon, Inya Lake is the place for an evening stroll, and the old botanical and wildlife park at Hlawga lies on the northern edge. River ferries give a look at delta life. There are no hills or trails nearby, and the monsoon and heat limit what anyone wants to do outside for much of the year.

The main day out is Bago, about two hours north by road or train, a former royal capital with the towering Shwemawdaw Pagoda, the long reclining Shwethalyaung Buddha and a reconstructed palace. Closer in, a ferry across the river and a ride inland lead to Twante, a pottery town of kilns and canals, and Kyauktan has a pagoda on an island in the river. The famous Golden Rock at Kyaiktiyo is too far for a comfortable day and is better done with a night away.

Yangon is hard going with children. The heat is relentless, pavements are broken or blocked by stalls, and traffic is heavy and disorderly. What is made for children is limited to an old-fashioned zoo, a small amusement park and the lawns of People's Park and the lakeside promenades. Families with older children who enjoy temples and markets can manage a few days, and Burmese people are warm towards children, but there is little here built around them.

The colonial downtown is a tight grid that can be walked, though pavements are uneven, crowded with vendors and dotted with gaps. Beyond it the city spreads out, and with no metro most visitors rely on taxis and ride-hailing, which are cheap but caught in heavy traffic. Motorbikes are kept out of the city centre, which makes the streets calmer than in many Asian cities. The Circular Railway is a slow loop worth riding for the views of daily life, not as transport, and city buses are hard for a visitor to work out.

Shopping in Yangon means Bogyoke Aung San Market, a colonial-era market hall packed with stalls selling jade, rubies, lacquerware from Bagan, puppets, woven bags and longyi, the wraparound cloth worn by men and women alike. Bargaining is expected and gems are best bought with caution. Chinatown and the Indian quarter add street markets of everyday goods and spices. There are malls for imported brands, but little in the way of design boutiques or fashion.

Yangon is a cheap city for a visitor. Tea-shop breakfasts, street noodles and local curry houses cost very little, taxis across town are inexpensive, and most pagodas charge little or nothing, with the Shwedagon the main exception for foreigners. Comfortable international-standard hotels are the larger cost and cost more than the rest of a stay would suggest, but simple guesthouses are plentiful.

There is little formal stage life for a visitor in Yangon. The main options are small performances of traditional Burmese marionette theatre and evening dinner shows of classical dance and music, such as those staged at the barge-shaped Karaweik Palace on Kandawgyi Lake. Pagoda festivals sometimes bring all-night zat pwe, popular theatre mixing dance, comedy and drama, but these are local occasions and hard to find. Concerts, opera and theatre in a Western sense are essentially absent.

Yangon has no bathing culture, but it offers two quieter ways to unwind. Traditional Burmese massage, firm and stretch-based, is widely available and inexpensive, and hotels have spas of their own. More distinctive are the Buddhist meditation centres, such as the long-established Mahasi centre, where foreigners can join vipassana practice for days or weeks. The early morning and evening at the Shwedagon or beside Inya Lake are calm, but the city around them is hot, loud and congested.