Shwe Sa Bwe restaurant

Yangon - This restaurant was ranked #1 on TripAdvisor and so I must give it a try.   We arrived on time for our 7.30pm booking.  It's not far from our hotel and also sits on the north shore of the Inya Lake.

Walking through the restaurant gives you a British colonial feeling, a beautifully decorated mansion and is one of the best fine dining in Yangon.   It has a catering training school  and was started as a social enterprise by a French expat Francois Stoupan.   Only a small intake of 22 students graduate per year and they come from all over Myanmar most from disadvantage backgrounds.

Dinner is from set meals of two or three courses.  We choose the 3 course meals.

Kawauchi and me

Salad

My first course was so beautifully and painstaking decorated like a fine artist. The vegetables are nicely placed on a cut out ring of watermelon.

Veal 

The veal was nicely done - rare in the middle and succulent.   Yummy....

Desert

This is art by passionate to be chefs.   The brown crust is meringue crisp and within is the ice-cream.   The ice was still solid sold.     A really good meal.

Lotte Hotel Yangon

Yangon - I was impressed with this newly opened 5-star Hotel in Yangon, very clean and spacious.   Lotte Yangon sits on the bank of the Inya Lake.     This is the largest lake in Yangon and is man-made by the British as a water reservoir between 1882 and 1883 in order to provide a water supply to Yangon.

View from the Hotel Lobby

Hotel Entrance

Le Panteur Restaurant @ Yangon

Yangon - We had to go to this acclaimed restaurant rated the number 2 in Yangon for its fine dining experience.   Le Panteur restaurant is house in an old colonial building facing the Inya Lake.   The setting is very beautiful.

entrance to this restaurant

outdoor setting besides the Inya Lake

Appetizer of foie gras

Hot and Freshly baked bread

Lobster salad

This dish was presented exquisitely with 3 slices of lobster meat topped with seasoning of various taste, water melon sorbet on thin jelly with beet room, grapes intricately displayed on the plate.  This dish was a work of art.

Beef cheeks stew

The beef cheeks was so tender that it melt in my mouth and it was very delicious.   The portion is sizeable around 200g of beef cheeks.

Lemon tart of biscuit crust

It was good but very expensive dinner.   

Min Lan seafood restaurant - Rakhine cuisine

Yangon - Min Lan is a very traditional Rakhine food and lots of seafood on their menu.

Rakhine traditional noodle with spicy fish soup 

Stir fried Chayote vegetables

Garlic fried squid

Mont Paung

It tasted like Putu Piring or Kueh Tutu in Singapore.   Singapore tasted much better with the smoother texture and creamier on the inside.

Golden Duck Restaurant @ Yangon

Yangon - My channel partner brought us to a popular Burmese Chinese restaurant specialising in roast duck.

Roast Duck

Spicy stir-fried Asparagus 

Diced pork with green peppers

Stir-fried Chicken 

The food is very home cooked style, delicious and simple.   The drawback is the that Golden Duck does not accept credit card payment, all cash only.

Taukkyan War Cemetery

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give - Winson Churchill

Yangon - I decided to go to Taukkyan War Cemetery before going to the airport.   The concierge arranged with a taxi driver that they trusted to not run away with my luggage.   Left the hotel around 11am and reach the location @ around 1pm due to the heavy traffic jam along the way.

I had to go as it's one of the most visited and highly rated war sites in all of Asia and it was worth the journey.   The lawn and passage to the memorial was well maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Taukkyan War Cemetery

The Taukkyan War Cemetery is a cemetery for Allied soldiers from the British Commonwealth who died in battle in Burma during the Second World War. The cemetery is in the village of Taukkyan, about 25 kilometres north of Yangon on Pyay Road.

Cross for all the christians that died in battle

awesome inscriptions on the wall

"Here are recorded the names of twenty seven thousand soldiers o many races united in service to the British Crown who gave their lives to Burma and Assam and to whom the fortune of war has denied the customary rites accorded to their comrades in death"

A large number of the 27,000 names of Commonwealth soldiers are of the Indian Army and African soldiers who fought and died in Burma. Of the total, 1,819 graves are Indian soldiers.

Rangoon Memorial Pillars

The Rangoon Memorial with the names of over 27,000 Commonwealth soldiers who died in Burma during the Second World War but who have no known grave.

rows of fallen soldiers 

manicured graves

Trellis along the graves

Gift from the Burmese people

The inscription states 'the land on which this cemetery stands is the gift of the Burmese people for the perpetual resting place of the sailor, soldiers and airmen who are honoured here'.

Back to Yangon

Yangon - The night was woken with heavy rain.   The rain was a long awaited 'blessing' many Myanmar people as their padi field and vegetable plantations have be parched dry by the dry spell of many months.  

Driving around Naypyidaw was eerie with no people on the 20 lane road.

20 lane highway near the Parliament House

After the seminar and a light dinner, we drove to Naypyidaw International Airport.   It was a modern airport that can rival many International airports in the world with a serene lack of passengers roaming around the terminal.   This gleaming airport was built to handle 3.5 million passengers annually, but sits mostly empty.  Just 1,250 tourists arrived in Myanmar via the capital in 2012.

Domestic terminal

coffee cart of illy

The flight on Air KBZ was a bit smooth with seat beat fasten all the way due to the heavy rain.   We decided to eat at our ParkRoyal Yangon Hotel and the choice was Si Chuan Dou Hua.  This is a chain of the famous Singapore restaurant.

Signature 8 treasure tea

Yummy dishes

Left dish - diced chicken with green pepper, cashew nuts and chestnuts
Middle dish - diced beef with green chilli and capsicum
Left dish - brinjal stir fried with oyster sauce and garlic

Comfort food is great for the stomach....

Hearty buffet breakfast and onward to Mandalay

Yangon - Park Royal has a very wide spread of Burmese breakfast.  This is a unique banana on one of the buffet platter.   Big and flat banana,

Saba Banana

Different kuek

We had lunch with Dr Kyaw @ The Golden Duck restaurant - the famous Chinese duck restaurant and then afterwards as a guest in his big house.  We waited till 4:30pm before we set off to the domestic airport bound for Mandalay.

Flight K7 

Air KBZ from Yangon to Mandalay and the flight K7 was a 2 seater per aisle turbo prop airplane.   As the weather is so hot, I was sweating on the plane and took the emergency plastic sheet and starting fanning myself.   The sweltering heat onboard the plane was unbearable even after take off.  Only after 30 mins into the flight the plane after to feel cool with the air-con now in full throttle.    Light snacks was served of sandwiches, butter cake, tea, water and a chocolate.

The flight time was just 1.5hrs...shortly after, the pilot announced that the plane is about to land soon.

Dr Kyaw drove about 2.5hrs from the airport to Pyin Oo Lwin by car which is our final destination.   The journey up the hill resort was dark and winding.   There were also many cargo trucks driving along the same direction with very careful manoeuvring in and out of traffic.

2nd trip to Yangon

Yangon - It was a breeze walking through customs and immigration as there were not many people on board the SilkAir flight.   The temperature is so hot in Yangon @ 41 degrees.   The taxi cost Kyat 8,000 to Parkroyal Yangon Hotel and I was immediately greeted politely upon arrival.   Upon the formal check-in; I was shown my room and it was freezing cold - so I had to set the thermostat to a comfortable temperature.

Mohinga

This is a rice noodle and fish soup staple of the Burmese culture.   It was good and nice to eat.

My six Yangon trivia

Yangon - Walking around Yangon town, I noticed some interesting facts here.

1.    Betel nuts chewing - many people were chewing and spiting on the road the red remnants of the betel nuts.   I looks utterly disgusting red splatters here and there and all over the place.   When they smile it reveals their addiction of Betel nuts chewing with reddish black stain on their teeth. This is a deadly addiction and the main causes of mouth cancer.

2.   Thanaka - You will notice young and old ladies putting this yellowish-white cosmetic paste on their faces.  Sometimes Myanmar guys too apply it too.   This is a distinctive feature of Myanmar people.  This cosmetic paste is obtained from the bark of the Thanka tree.

3.   Motocycles - We wonder why there were no motorcycles in Yangon town and was revealed by a local that motorcycles are banned on Yangon town since 2003.  If they are caught riding a motorbike within the town, they will be fine Kyat (pronounced like chat) 50,000 (about USD 50). No one know the real reason why?

4.   Taxis - there are many taxis plying the streets of Yangon but none has any meter installed in them.  You need to ask and bargain before getting onto the taxi.  Within the city it ranges from USD 1 to 9.

5.   Pagodas - There are many Buddhist Pagodas in Yangon and much more in all of Myanmar.

6.  British colonial building - there are so many old British colonial building which should be kept to retain the flavour of Myanmar past, but sadly these are torn down to make way for rapid development.   Buildings are being torn down faster than they can be recorded and preserve.

7.  Mohinga - the unofficial national dish of Mynamar.  Fine, round rice noodles served in a hearty herbal fish and shallot based broth.

Mohinga at Shangri-La breakfast

Feel restaurant

Yangon - For dinner we went to this restaurant that came highly recommended for its many local patrons.   There were many local diners in this restaurant and food was good.   It is more casual and I had to walk up to the counter and pick the dishes I like,  my orders was noted down and brought to my table.

Pick and choose your dishes

complimentary starters

The sauce in the middle was spicy and had a strong fish smell but fortunately it tasted good.

Dishes Lesley ordered

Lesley ordered 'fried prawns with sambal', 'egg plant', 'mutton' and 'vermicelli and egg' dishes.  All tasted really good.   We cleared the dishes and the second round I ordered them.

Beef stew and pork stew

The Beef had a very strong 'animal' smell and not really to my liking.  The Pork was ok.

Roti prata or Roti chennai

It was funny to see this Roti prata being sold which I believe has more to do with Malaysian influence.  Many Yangon residents can speak Malay having lived and work there for years.

Malacca food

This Feel restaurant also had hawker style stalls set up outside the restaurant that serve Malaysian food of Laksa and chicken rice.

Shwedagon Pagoda

Yangon -  The concierge told us that the best time to visit the Shwedagon Pagoda was around 4-6pm when it was cool and not so hot.   The Shwedagon Pagoda is believed to be built more than 2500 years ago.   This is Yangon's most prominent landmark visible from far away and towers over 100 meters above the city-scape.

The entrance to the Shwedagon Pagoda was Ks 8,000 and shoes have to be removed, but the floor is reasonably clean.   Since it was raining prior, a green anti-slip mat lined the surrounding of the Pagoda walkway.   The Shwedagon Pagoda and the surrounding buildings cover a wide area.

The temple is sheathed in gold worth more than $100m, the glowing bell-shaped stupa stands at the centre of the 14-acre Shwedagon complex.   The radiant 32 storey stupa rises upward, and is studded with 4,350 diamonds and precious stones, including a 76-carat diamond on its tip.

The Shwedagon Pagoda

One of the temple within the compound

Entrance to the South stairway

Shops along the South Stairway

There were many taxis waiting outside the exit of the Shwedagon Pagoda.   You need to bargain on the taxi fare.