Myanmar Day 2 - Going around Bogyoke Aung San Market

Exploring Yangoon, it likes we jump into time machine when modernity comes in a minimum way. People can wear their tradition and root without looking odd or out of place. And the best part is when fresh fruit and fresh flower is just around the corner.  There's no mall yet in Yangoon. Traditional Market is still the melting pot for people to meet and have daily transaction.

So, we decided that market becomes our first destination on the first day in Yangoon. We started the journey from Bogyoke Aung San Market. The one that was built from 1926, is also known as Scott Market for unknown reason. From the hotel, we bargained for taxi. So glad Mr. Krishna join. He speaks Burmese as he's originally a Burmese, only he had immigrated for years to Bangkok.
For sure he is such a big help as we hardly understand their English accent. In here no taxi use meter. It's really exciting cuz it means we can practise with our bargaining skill. After checking with several taxi, we decided  2000 kyat is the right price to get around.

Poeple wears traditional dress in here

Bogyoke Aung San Market

It took only 20 mins from hotel to the market. I'm very impressed with the cleanliness of the  city including this market. I reflect on where I live now, Jakarta has all the resources to make modern market but we always failed to make it clean and convenience. On the opposite is Bogyoke market.  The place is pretty basic, but we hardly smell stacking garbage.

Being the oldest market in the city, no question it become tourist attraction by default. The front part is line of money changer and jewelry store. We exchange our USD into kyat. The exchange from official money changer doesnt differ much.

So basically we can just go to any. All along the street, there are guys offering exchange money. This is the black market. We tried to get more bargain. But somehow, exchange rate in the official is still better. So, might as well just go to the official!

Hunting for Diamond

Half of the trip at this market we spent it in jewelry store. Mr Robin is a shopping man. He shop for almost everything and his eyes went blink blink looking at jewelry lines: gold, diamond and jade. He's looking for chance of cheaper price of 3rd world country. We wandered around several store. From here, I learnt that measuring diamond is pretty simple. There's a tool: Diamond Selector -- just need to press it against the stone until light meter blink. The greener, the better the carrat. We did several test with our watch glass.  I pressed the Diamond Selector into my Swatch: Red. Davide tried it with his Breitling: wohoo.. green. Hmmm. Mr. Robin with his existing ring.. bold green. Oke. Only me, the only woman in the trip who didn't wear diamond!

Enough with diamond. We walked to another row as the guys started looking at jade accessories and wonder why that greenish stone cost a fortune as well. Back in the hotel, we googled and found out that Myanmar is one of the rare country that produce jadeite.

Short Tea: a culture of no pressure

We walked further deep inside the market. We arrived to one aisle with plenty of short chairs. Remind me of the street food in Vietnam. We came closer and find out this is the place where local relax and have cup of tea. We took one seat and order a set of Myanmar tea. Different with other place that has door, here we order through the window. Myanmar tea, please!

Myanmar tea style is a bit like Teh Tarik. It's tea mixed with condensed milk. The different lies on the type of tea. They use local herbal tea, leave the tea more fragrant and slightly bitter. 1 set cost 600 kyatt.

Sitting in the short chair makes me feel funny. It's like I'm sinked down into liliput world. But after a while I find it cute. Looking around, it's definitely a contra culture of high tea. Remember when you attend a high tea session, you'll have to dress up, chin up, perform the tea with manner. In here, we sit down, dress down, sip the tea and laugh freely as you like. Most of the people here wear sarong. The men and the women. As we were sitting there, people immediately notice we are tourist as no one wear shorts like we did. They said hello, how are you and asked simple question in broken english. We answered back. They all laughed to each other. Simply cuz they don't know how to continue the conversation in english. And the universal language is coming in: gesture, nod and smile. Awesome!!