---
type: Video
title: "All Aboard the Myanmar Dictatorship Express! 🇲🇲"
description: A country in civil war seeing twenty tourists a day — a midnight curfew, a black market exchange rate a subscriber saves Harry from, and a three-hour circular railway for thirty cents.
tags: [myanmar, yangon, trains, curfew, currency, pagoda, markets, civil-war]
timestamp: 2026-08-05T12:00:00Z
resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSO2NF9gQ-M
video_id: cSO2NF9gQ-M
upload_date: 2024-11-25
duration: 2702
---

# All Aboard the Myanmar Dictatorship Express! 🇲🇲

Harry goes to [Yangon](/places/yangon.md) with
[Cameron Mofid](/people/cameron-mofid.md), for whom
[Myanmar](/countries/myanmar.md) is country **193 of 193** — Laos, filmed after
this, finishes the set.

It is one of the least-visited countries in the bundle: about twenty tourists a
day at the famous pagoda, a closed currency you cannot buy abroad, a black market
exchange rate that moves daily, and a curfew that leaves the taxi driver who
brings Harry to his hotel stranded until three in the morning.

The centrepiece is the circular railway — three hours around the city for about
thirty cents — off which he gets at the wrong stop, and which produces the
sentence he repeats twice: get public transport out of the city, because the
city doesn't reflect the country.

*Obs: the video's description carries a fuller and more precise account of the
political situation than the narration, and is the source for those figures on
the country page.*

## Key moments

- [00:35] Comparable to Thailand for natural beauty, and empty of tourists
  because of the civil war.
- [01:09] Advice from a passenger before he lands: keep yourself safe, and don't
  be out after midnight.
- [01:46] **The curfew** — roughly 1am to 3am, nothing on the streets. If you're
  in a bar you stay until 4am.
- [02:17] Six hours of flight delays.
- [03:27] **Immigration in five minutes**, because there are barely any
  foreigners on board.
- [04:01] The currency and SIM counters are closed.
- [04:32] He has kyat only because [Luke Damant](/people/luke-damant.md) gave him
  some before he left — **it's a closed currency and can't be bought outside the
  country.**
- [05:07] A taxi negotiated with no idea of the right price. He's tired, and says
  on camera that if he gets scammed, he gets scammed.
- [06:09] Myanmar as a Buddhist country, and the streets extraordinarily quiet.
- [06:41] **The reason the roads are empty**: nobody is allowed out. His driver
  can drop him off and then must wait until 3am to go home.
- [07:43] A hotel at **$40 a night** — among the nicest he has stayed in and, he
  thinks, the cheapest. There's a nightclub downstairs.
- [08:44] **Cameron's 193rd country.** The 194th, and last, will come after this.
- [09:03] Changing money, and looking for the black market rate because it's
  better — though tourists aren't supposed to use it.
- [09:20] A subscriber recognises him in the street and tells him the correct
  rate.
- [09:51] He deliberately doesn't film the transaction, to keep anyone out of
  trouble.
- [09:51] **The rate is volatile and changes daily**, so you can't know exactly
  what you're getting and have to trust the person.
- [10:22] First impressions: clean city, curious and friendly people, and far more
  religious diversity than he expected — churches, mosques and Hindu temples.
- [10:52] **Thanaka**, the yellow face paste, which turns out not to be makeup but
  skincare.
- [11:31] Coconut for 6,000, drunk on a kerb with a group of boys, some of whom
  are apprenticed monks who will give their lives to Buddhism.
- [13:18] The approach to the pagoda, lined with souvenir stalls — Buddhism turned
  into capitalism, as he puts it.
- [14:26] Shwedagon: gold, under bamboo scaffolding for renovation.
- [14:57] **The comparison that matters**, and he makes it explicitly with
  Ukraine: people are shooting at each other while he films, a long way away, and
  a country being at war doesn't mean the whole country is dangerous. Yangon is
  safe and the people are very friendly.
- [15:57] Why the scaffolding — the gold leaf is periodically replaced, and it is
  real gold.
- [16:32] 80 to 82% of Myanmar is Buddhist.
- [17:03] A guide asks 30,000; Harry pays 20,000, about five dollars, for a short
  tour. The guide says his usual rate is higher and that things are hard with so
  few tourists.
- [18:08] Entry contributions go towards the gold.
- [18:43] **20 to 25 tourists a day**, against a great many three years earlier.
- [18:43] And why, on the guide's account: not fear — Thailand. Next door, more
  developed, direct flights. Myanmar takes one or two transits.
- [19:47] Incomes: nothing stable, most work fallen away.
- [20:18] You can pray anywhere in the complex.
- [20:52] **Betel** — a betel leaf around lime paste, chewed as a stimulant, and
  extremely common.
- [21:22] Harry tries it and reports feeling mildly energetic.
- [21:56] Theravada Buddhism, shared with Thailand, as against the Mahayana school
  of Japan, China and Korea.
- [22:28] Population around 52 to 53 million.
- [23:41] Being told the British used to own Burma.
- [24:15] **Fanning the Buddha**, which he describes as a gym workout.
- [25:12] Pork trotters, offered by locals who debate whether to charge him and
  don't. Pure fat, and he eats it.
- [26:28] A fried vegetable snack, given free, which he rates highly.
- [27:00] Pirated DVDs — K-pop, Hollywood, Bollywood.
- [27:32] **The circular train** — a full loop of Yangon in about three hours, and
  you can get off anywhere.
- [28:04] A station that feels British-built; his comparison is Sri Lanka and
  India.
- [28:35] No tourist infrastructure, because there are no tourists.
- [28:35] The train itself is Chinese.
- [29:09] The oldest train he has been on — the destination board looks fifty
  years old.
- [29:42] **About 1,000 kyat, or 30 cents.** A watermelon on board costs nearly
  as much as the ticket.
- [30:13] His verdict on the city: not a lot to do beyond a few pagodas, so get
  out of it.
- [30:44] A vendor boards with his ingredients and cooks lunch on the train.
- [34:40] **The rule, stated**: get public transport out of the city and you see
  the real country. Cities don't reflect the culture.
- [37:08] They get off at the wrong stop and walk twenty minutes along the tracks.
- [38:48] Locals dry their clothes on the railway line.
- [39:25] Stingrays sold from a van — 10,000 each, about $2, and well over a
  hundred of them.
- [39:56] The rural market: thousands of people, huge speakers, mostly fruit and
  vegetables.
- [40:28] **The locals here are much more suspicious of the camera** than in the
  city, which he puts down to foreigners essentially never coming.
- [40:58] A drink he's warned off because it's mixed with unclean water. He notes
  the old Harry would have drunk it.
- [41:28] Sugar cane juice, 700, which he loves.
- [42:40] The meat aisle, with animals killed in the open, which he mostly
  declines to film.
- [43:17] **Money hung on a tree** in the market — 1,000 and 5,000 notes pinned up
  in the open and untouched. In England or America, he says, it would be gone.
- [44:37] The verdict: pleasantly surprised, very safe in the areas tourists can
  reach, and a genuinely undiscovered and authentic country — and congratulations
  to Cameron.

## Extracted pages

- Place: [Yangon](/places/yangon.md)
- Country: [Myanmar](/countries/myanmar.md)
- Person: [Cameron Mofid](/people/cameron-mofid.md)
- Tips: [Judge a place for yourself](/tips/judge-a-place-for-yourself.md),
  [Ride out past the tourist strip](/tips/ride-out-past-the-tourist-strip.md)