What I didn't expect was how cosmopolitan this city of five million would feel after 10 days in other parts of Burma. This former capital passes our "Count-of-Bakeries Economic Development Index." If case you missed the original explanation, we created a methodology for use in determining a Sri Lankan town's modern development by counting the number and proximity of bakery restaurants and shops. We are happy to report the index seems to work in Burma too. Yangon, as it ia now called, seems alive with people and it is less noticeably polluted than the city from we just arrived. If politics in this nation allows promised changes, I'd very much like to visit here again to see what becomes of it.
Bright and early this morning, our bus pulled to a stop exactly at the promised time of 06:00. We came by taxi directly to Hotel 63 as we booked two days via agoda.com. This hotel has a beautiful lobby and is full of very friendly and professional staff. We arrived before 07:00 but they rushed to clean a room for an early check in. In fact they offered a complementary buffet breakfast for us while we waited. We hadn't slept well on the bus so it we very welcomed. The hotel, unfortunately is undergoing some renovation, so although not a problem for average guests, we found our fifth floor noisy. After an hour, the front desk found a second floor room we could move into. The only real drawback is the sketchy neighbourhood. We walked to the center of downtown in just a half hour for dinner, but I expect many tourists might find it uncomfortably daunting.
Tomorrow is an open day. I'll tell how we used it in my next blog entry.