---
type: Place
title: Yangon
description: A three-hour circular railway for thirty cents, a gold pagoda seeing twenty tourists a day, a $40 hotel Harry rates among the best he's stayed in, and a rural market where money hangs untouched on a tree.
tags: [yangon, myanmar, trains, pagoda, markets, buddhism, curfew, street-food]
coordinates: {lat: 16.7967, lng: 96.1610}
timestamp: 2026-08-05T12:00:00Z
---

# Yangon

The largest city in [Myanmar](/countries/myanmar.md), and the whole of Harry's
few days there with [Cameron Mofid](/people/cameron-mofid.md).

His summary is that there is not a great deal to do in the city itself — a few
pagodas — and that the way to spend your time is to get out of it on the train.
On safety, he is unambiguous: Yangon is safe and the people are very friendly,
and the fighting is a long way away.

## Arriving

- **A six-hour flight delay** to start with, and compensation handed out at the
  gate.
- **Immigration in five minutes**, because there are almost no foreigners on the
  flight.
- **The currency and SIM counters were shut** when he landed. He had kyat only
  because a friend had given him some in advance — it's a closed currency and you
  can't buy it abroad.
- **A taxi into town**, negotiated down without any idea of the right price. He
  says on camera that he's tired, he's letting it go, and if he gets scammed he
  gets scammed.
- **The curfew is why the roads are empty.** Nothing moves between roughly
  midnight and 3am. His driver can drop him off and then has to sit and wait
  until three before going home.

**The hotel** is the surprise: **$40 a night**, one of the nicest he has stayed
in and, he thinks, the cheapest. There's a nightclub downstairs.

## Changing money

The most useful practical passage in the video.

- **The official rate is worse than the black market rate**, and tourists aren't
  supposed to use the latter.
- **A subscriber recognised Harry in the street and told him what rate he should
  be getting**, which is how he avoided being cheated. He deliberately doesn't
  film the transaction, to avoid getting anyone in trouble.
- **The rate moves daily and is volatile**, so you can't know precisely what you
  should get and have to trust the person changing it.

## Shwedagon Pagoda

The famous one, and a huge gilded structure that was under bamboo scaffolding
when Harry visited.

- **The gold leaf is replaced periodically**, which is what the scaffolding is
  for, and it is real gold. Your entry contribution goes towards it — the guide's
  framing is that visitors are paying for the next layer.
- **The approach is lined with souvenir stalls**, which Harry notes has turned
  Buddhism into capitalism.
- **20 to 25 tourists a day**, where three years earlier there were a great many.
- **You can pray anywhere in the complex**; there are no restrictions on where
  you sit.
- **You can fan the Buddha**, which Harry does, and describes as a gym workout.
- **A guide asked 30,000 and took 20,000** — about five dollars — for a short
  tour, having explained that his usual rate is higher and that tourists are so
  scarce that things are hard.

*Obs: the guide gives his name, but in a form the subtitles render only as a
number, so he is not named here.*

## The circular train

The best thing in the city, on Harry's account, and the thing he'd tell you to
do.

- **The Yangon circular railway** runs a full loop of about three hours, and you
  can get off wherever you like.
- **A ticket is around 1,000 kyat — roughly 30 cents.** A watermelon bought on
  board cost nearly as much as the fare.
- **The station feels British-built**, which he clocks immediately; his
  comparison is Sri Lankan and Indian stations.
- **The train is Chinese**, with Chinese lettering on the front, and it is the
  oldest he has ever been on — the destination board looks fifty years old.
- **There is no tourist infrastructure**, because there are no tourists.
- **Vendors work the carriages constantly**, including a man who boards with all
  his ingredients and cooks lunch on the train.
- **Locals dry their clothes on the tracks.**

His conclusion, delivered twice: get public transport out of the city, because
the city doesn't reflect the country. It became a
[tip](/tips/ride-out-past-the-tourist-strip.md).

## The rural market

Reached by getting off at the wrong stop and walking twenty minutes along the
tracks.

- **A huge indoor market**, mostly fruit and vegetables, with enormous speakers
  playing music, and thousands of people.
- **The locals are noticeably more suspicious of the camera** than in the city.
  Harry's guess is that foreigners essentially never come here.
- **Sugar cane juice, 700**, which he loves, and a lot of cane grown locally.
- **Stingrays, 10,000 each — about $2** — sold from a van with what looks like
  more than a hundred in it.
- **A load a woman is carrying, 40,000, about $10.**
- **A drink he's warned off**, because it's mixed with unclean water. He notes
  the old Harry would have drunk it.
- **The meat aisle**, where animals are being killed in the open, and which he
  declines to film much of.
- **Money hung on a tree.** Notes of 1,000 and 5,000 pinned up in the open in the
  meat section, untouched. His comment is that in England or America it would all
  be gone within minutes.

## Street food and street life

- **Coconut, 6,000**, drunk on a kerb with a group of Burmese boys who sit down
  with him — some of them apprenticed monks, who will devote their lives to
  Buddhism.
- **Pork trotters**, offered to him by locals who visibly debate whether to charge
  him and then don't. He describes it as pure fat and eats it anyway.
- **A fried vegetable snack**, which he rates highly and which he's given for
  free.
- **Pirated DVDs** — K-pop, Hollywood and Bollywood, and clearly not legitimate.
- **Betel-chewing men everywhere.**

## Harry's tips

- **Bring kyat with you or arrive with dollars.** It's a closed currency and the
  airport counters may be shut.
- **Find out the black market rate before you change money.** A stranger told
  Harry his and it's the reason he wasn't cheated.
- **Be off the street before midnight, or plan to stay out until 4am.** The
  curfew is real and the roads are empty.
- **Do the circular train.** Three hours, thirty cents, and the best thing in the
  city.
- **Get off at a random stop.** He did, by accident, and it made the video.
- **Don't drink anything mixed with tap water**, which is the one warning he was
  given and took.

## Source

- [All Aboard the Myanmar Dictatorship Express! 🇲🇲](/videos/cSO2NF9gQ-M.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSO2NF9gQ-M