A Walk Through Colonial Yangon

Truck Passes By a Colonial Building in Yangon

Truck Passes By a Colonial Building in Yangon

Until recently, Yangon was the capital of Myanmar. History shows that Dagon was founded on the site of Yangon way back in the 6th century, which was a mere fishing village around the Shwedagon pagoda. When the British came and colonized Burma, in the 19th century, now named Yangon, it was made the capital of British Burma. As any colonizing power would do, they started to plan the city and built a lot of colonial buildings. Much of which still stand today.

Impressive Domed Building

Impressive Domed Building

The city of Yangon has a gird based layout much like Mandalay. The streets are unimaginatively named by numbers, which I think makes it easier for people to find streets, remembering them might be a different issue. Since there were a lot of residents in Yangon, the British built a lot of tall buildings around eight stories or more. The streets were also packed close to each other that little sunlight gets through unless the sun is directly overhead. So the streets tend to be dark.

Elegant Building in Downtown Yangon

Elegant Building in Downtown Yangon

Since the assumption of military rule in Burma, and renamed as Myanmar. There have been very little changes in the colonial buildings. Thankfully, a lot of the buildings have been preserved. There are not really maintained very well, but at least they were not demolished. This has resulted in Yangon having the largest number of colonial buildings in South East Asia. Although the buildings are old, there is still a lot of character left in them.

Beautiful Building with Billboards

Beautiful Building with Billboards

Fortunately, for me, the White House hotel is just a stone’s throw away from the more significant colonial buildings in Yangon. Just a short walk from the hotel and you can already start to relive the glory days of British rule here in Myanmar. Most of the buildings are still occupied and surprisingly command a high price despite its delapidated nature. One building in particular is the Strand Hotel which is probably Yangon’s equivalent of Raffles Hotel in Singapore. The building looks brand new and I’m sure it would be expensive to stay in that place. I guess it would be a given that Strand Hotel will have 24 hour electricity and all the luxuries that most Yangon residents cannot afford.

The Elegant Strand Hotel

The Elegant Strand Hotel

There is this irresitable charm that Yangon exudes with these colonial buildings, it would be nice if the buildings were maintained a bit more but as it is they are already a pleasant sight to see. If it weren’t for the people on the streets of Yangon you would think that you were in England.

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