I decided to head out on foot to the Nation Museum, which worked out to be around a 45min walk. As the sun glared down at me and my body lost litres of liquid I quickly began wondering if this was such a good idea. On top of that was trying to cross the 6 lane roads, attempting to time when the lights would change for the traffic at the intersection and making a dash for it, as cars beeped their horns as they come barrelling towards you.

At the end of this day I caught a taxi back to downtown, costing a huge 3,000 kyat (pronounced chat). That’s a whole $3, that’s $3 to not be a sweating wreck, and that’s also $3 to not be run over by cars crossing the road. I figured from that point on that catching a taxi is a much better, and safer, option from now on.

The Nation Museum is a fairly decent museum. It’s not great, but there is some interesting things to be seen, like the Royal Lion Throne that’s impressively decorated golden with animal symbolism and in particular the winged lion and winged elephant fighting. Legend has it that a Deva called Lawka Nat saw the two fight and began dancing,  which soothed the anger out of the beasts. The ascended king to the throne represents the Deva, who can be the arbiter of disputes and bring peace to the land.

Just as I was about to finished the museum the power cut. I was eyeing off the elevator earlier, and as staff yelled at the elevator doors to see if anyone was trapped, I decided to leave via the stairs. Next stop, the Peoples Park.

This park might as well be renamed Lovers Park. Ignoring the dodgy looking amusement part off to the side, the motif for the bulk of the park is indeed love. There’s even large concrete sculpture that literally says LOVE, so there’s not a lot of misinterpreting this. As I walked through the park, making my way towards the Shwedagon Paya, there were love seats dotted through out the gardens where young couples sit together having an intimate moment, umbrellas open blocking the sun (and giving some privacy). It’s a really beautiful and serene park, perhaps made more serene having come from the beeping and chaos of the traffic to be replaced by the sound of swaying trees and birds chirping.

The Shwedagon Paya is pretty damn impressive. You can see it’s golden stupa a far distance away in several directions. The entrance, one of four, is flanked by two giant golden half lion half dragon monuments. This is where you need to take off your shoes/slippers, as it is custom to take them off going inside (especially when it’s holy ground). Two flights of escalators later I’m at the top and step out into a world of gold, payas, and temples.

I couldn’t describe it as anything else I’ve seen. The floor is marble (more on that later), and all around the Shwedagon Paya are dozens and dozens of small temples representing all manner of things to pray to, including the day you were born. I saw on several occasions people literally throwing themselves to the marble floor infront of one that houses a Buddha’s and praying.

Not only is it a dazzling visual experience, but your ears and nose are treated as well. Over head chimes dangling from the top of pagados singing along with the breeze, while tendrils incense of smoke wind their way through out the complex.

This is a place for the religious and curious alike. Monks and locals pray (the locals seem more feverish in their prayer), while tourists wandering about taking photos and following guide books. I saw a few guys wearing the traditional dress/sarong the locals wear, and I have to say to anyone considering doing this, please don’t. You will look like an idiot.

Back to the marble floor. One thing I haven’t read as a warning is how hot it gets. When the sun is shooting deaths rays of 30+ degree heat, that marble heats up to not so comfortable temperatures. To help with this, they’ve put down this green plastic mesh that acts as a walkway. However the plastic just bites into your feet, so it’s not such a great alternative. I’m guessing people have built up a decent amount of calluses on the soles of their feet to not notice. As much as I would have liked to spent more time just wondering around, the roasting of the feet took it’s toll and I headed off.

The next day I planned to pay a visit to the Kandawgyi Lake, the British build reservoir, also known as Royal Lake. But before that was a stop at the next door Zoo.

Catching a taxi to the Zoological Garden I arrive early enough that there were few people wandering about. The zoo itself is quite nice, it’s more like you’re in a forest than a park, with trees towering over you and the occasional branch falling to the path (just narrowly missing a little kid one time). The animals themselves looked happy and healthy, although many live in concrete cells. It’s hard to be judgemental when we have standards at Taronga Zoo, but for a country that doesn’t exactly boast to be wealthy the zoo is surprisingly good and well maintained.

Well except for the toilets. The first cubicle was squat, so was the second, and the third was a sit down toilet. That was covered in shit. Like someone had squatted over it and let loose. As I stood in shock and horror at the sight, a gecko ran out of the toilet, paused to gauge my reaction, then scampered off. Yay, squat toilet it was.

After spending a good chunk of the morning at the zoo, I crossed the road and tried to work out how to walk around Kandawgi Lank. The southern side I was on had a board walk heading east. So I started along the boardwalk, planks of wood shifting in place, avoiding holes, having the odd plank actually tip upward. This… isn’t exactly a safe boardwalk. With those thoughts I see up ahead a red flag and the boardwalk blocked off. Beyond that were workmen ripping up the planks and replacing them with new. Yep, good idea to fix this, and with that I turned back and made my way to the eastern side along the road sidewalk.

There is a fee to enter the eastern side, and looking at the boardwalk from the south, it never makes it to this side. Infact the eastern side is completely cut off from the rest of the lake. So you pay to enter (and a fee to take photos or video), and all there really is here are a bunch of places to eat and some souvenir shops. In other words, it’s an maturing tourist trap. Across the road high rise apartments/hotels are being built, and several mini vans of tourists made there way here to spend all of ten minutes looking at the lake. It’s not expensive to get in, 300kyat per person plus 500kyat for cameras. That’s about 80c. But lets see how much it is when those hotels are finished.

I did have a moment of cash conscience. I had brought with me two credit card, Visa as the main, and an AMEX tied to the same account as the back up. The ATM decided to eat my Visa, much to my dismay, but I shrugged it off and thought well I still have the AMEX. The second last day of Yangon I went to use the card, logged in fine with the PIN and after trying to withdraw cash – DENIED. My heart sank. I when through a course of different banks, all them denying me when I tried withdrawing.

Googling credit cards in Myanmar, all the information stated that Visa and Mastercard are accepted. No mention of AMEX. Damnit. I bought a cheap game off Steam just to make sure the card was working; the game purchased fine, the card was fine, it just wasn’t accepted in any ATM I’d tried.

So last resort, Western Union. I figured I’d be smart and create an account and just transfer money from my AMEX to an agent here in Yangon. But the WU website is terrible, and after finally being able to create an account it wanted my proof of my ID, but offering no way to do that online. Ugh, this is supposed to be easy.

I end up emailed the parents and asking for them to send cash via WU. They do so first thing in the morning, because they’re awesome parents. I get my cash and all is good again.

Tomorrow I make my first stop toward going south, to the town of Bago. Yangon has strangely started to grow on me, I didn’t like it here at first but now I’m feeling like part of me will miss the chaos.

But we’ll see what other chaos lays ahead..