The trip to Yangon was an exercise in endurance. First we took a 13 hour overnight bus to
Istanbul, and then we got the metro to the airport for a 10 hour overnight
flight to Kuala Lumpur via a two hour stopover in Doha.
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| Doha Airport |
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| High Fashion in Doha |
We arrived in KL around 7.30 am local time but it was about
2.30 am Turkish time.
We had gotten
about 6 hours sleep, caught in one hour cat naps sitting up, over the last two
nights so were feeling pretty rough.
Then we had all day in the KL airport to wait for our late afternoon
flight to Yangon.
KLIA is a labyrinth of levels and terminals which we found
quite counter-intuitive to navigate. The
low cost passenger terminal has been replaced by KLIA 2 and the entire complex
seems to cater more for shopping than travel, as all airports seem to do
nowadays.
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| Terminal entrance |
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| Air Asia really has made travel accessible for Asians (and Australians) |
We arrived in Yangon in the evening. It was interesting that the plane was filled
with young Burmese men, who I assume were returning to their homes while
working in Malaysia. It was very
reminiscent of the flight from India to the Middle East – full of guest workers
trying to make some money for their families at home.
The airport in Yangon was modern and efficient. Bob had been to Burma in 1987 and was amazed
at the changes. Taking the taxi through
the streets of Yangon I was amazed at the modernity, at least it looked so in
the dark. I fully expected a city much poorer
than Vientiane or Phnom Penh, but the streets were lined with upmarket shopping
malls and luxury car dealerships. There
were hardly any cars on the street in 1987, now there are traffic jams of
modern make cars; hardly an old banger in sight.
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| Night traffic |
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| Cars jamming narrow streets |
Despite our lack of sleep, we were revived by the ride
through the city. We checked into our
hotel, located in the Chinatown section of the city near the Strand Road along
the river, and hit the streets in search of a bit of dinner. Oh it was good to be back in Southeast
Asia! The streets are dirty and chaotic,
but oh so vibrant!
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| Food stalls |
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| Street food on offer |
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| Chatting while selling vegetables |
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