All Aboard the Myanmar Dictatorship Express! 🇲🇲

Harry goes to Yangon with Cameron Mofid, for whom Myanmar 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 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
• Country: Myanmar
• Person: Cameron Mofid
• Tips: Judge a place for yourself, Ride out past the tourist strip