Bob Percival walks the streets of downtown Yangon and finds old warehouses, the home of Ludu Sein Win, a cut-throat razor shave, and teashop laneways.
It’s an impossibly hot morning. It is supposed to be the middle of winter and the temperature on the streets is already hotter than an Australian summer. Yangon is still waiting for a cold winter night where you can turn off the air-con and fans, and pull up a blanket instead. The morning air is clear though, and today I am walking 39th Street with my good friend Sabai, who is employed at Hla Day, a social enterprise that works with disadvanteged groups producing beautiful artisan products. Like many young Myanmar people, Sabai wants to study overseas. Paris is the dream she will make come true.
We start at the bottom block, down on Strand Road. The road is blocked here due to security around the British and Australian embassy buildings. The laconic guards direct us around to the entrance off Merchant Street. This section of 39th Street is taken up by century-old warehouses that would have served the river trade in colonial times – in the 1920s, Rangoon was the second busiest port in the world after New York. Most of the warehouses are abandoned now, ready for redevelopment. A local tells us that No.40-42 was once owned by Indian traders but taken over by the army regime in the 1962 coup, as were most businesses in Rangoon. No.54-58 is being converted into a new bar, being given a very kitsch neo-classical façade.
Opposite is the Post Office Collection Office where you can rent your own PO Box for 25,000Ks a year. On the corners of Merchant and 39th are two iconic Yangon buildings. On the right is the St. John the Baptist Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church of Yangon, the oldest church in Yangon, consecrated in 1863, the land bequested by King Thibaw in recognition of Armenian traders.
On the other corner is a two-storey early 1900s shophouse building recently renovated by Turquoise Mountain – an example of building preservation that incorporates and respects its residents. There is a small gallery upstairs that was once the headquarters of famed journalist Ludu Sein Win and his newspaper The People. He lived in the rooms next door where he conducted his revolutionary Feeling, Mood and Action School during the regime years. There’s also a teashop on the ground floor where writers and poets regularly hang out. Anyone is welcome to join in the conversations.
We cross over Merchant Street to the lower middle block. The large building on the righthand corner is the Government Immigration Office, well worth a look for its architectural details. On the left is the mysteriously titled Oriental Aspiration Company. Further up on the right at No.96 we run into some local girls waiting to start work at Virya Couture, another social enterprise business training young local people in sewing and dressmaking. At No.102 is the Little Yangon Hostel run by the very amiable Rosie and her family. Excellent and cheap accomodation in the heart of the city. This is a street block full of travel and tour companies. There are also some classic old colonial residences at No.105 and No.125 which has impressive mosaic steps. This building is currently for sale.
At No.130 there is a dharma yone used for Buddhist religious instruction and gatherings. Outside are some beautiful glazed celadon water jars, locked in their own gilded aluminium cage. Across the road at No.131 is a great example of a Marston Mat door, recycled from leftover WW2 material. At No.134 a local boy is surrounded by tin cans, glass and plastic bottles, cardboard boxes, and newspapers, all to be sorted and sent out to a recycling depot at Saw Bwar Gyi Kone, near Insein. Another classic early 1900s building, complete with wooden shutters and wooden steps is at No.140. Concrete steps replaced wood in residential buildings in the early 1920s – a good way to gauge the age of a building in Yangon.
The temperature is rising to the mid-30s as we cross over Mahabandoola Road to the upper middle block. On the righthand corner, Ali is busy working at his water pump repair shopfront. It’s small and crowded but his family has been working here for over forty years. His grandfather, a Sunni, came here from India. He’s here every day from 9am to 6pm. The price to repair a water pump is around 40,000Ks.
Next door is the Tourist Barber Shop. We talk to Ya Zar Maung who has been working here for only two weeks. He started cutting hair professionally when he was 13 years old. His father is also a barber. It’s 1,300Ks for a haircut and 500Ks for a shave, cut-throat razor of course. The shop is open from 8am to 9pm. Further along at No.156 is the stunning ISMAIL ARRIFF WAQF building, rendered in a beautiful clay-brown stucco. The date on the building says 1951 but the windows look more like early 1900s. Next door at No.160 is another heritage 1925 building which the landlord has tried twice to demolish but two tenants are refusing to move, delaying the fate of many buildings downtown.
The small but odd sign above the doorway at No.171 advertises the business of Scientific Palmist & Psychic, Sadanar Sayar Datpone Ko Kyan Win. The strange illustration accompanying the sign is of a Burmese toy which always corrects itself to stand upright. Something we all should do! More heritage buildings are at No.185, 186 & 187.
At No.200 we run into our old friend Don Wright who runs Wired on 39, a great art studio where Don sells his fantastic wire creations, as well as skirts and dresses made up from woven cloth brought down from Chin State. There is an excellent dosa street stall on the south-east corner of Anawratha Road, only 400Ks for two dosa and some mont hnit for dipping.
Across Mahabandoola Road on the north-east corner of the upper block there are more good food stalls serving deep-fried rice pastry (mont si kyaw), and three diferent kinds of sticky rice (kauk hnyin) – with bean, without bean and black, all topped up with freshly shredded coconut flesh, crushed sesame seed and salt (nhan htaung). Shwe kyi, made from sticky rice and jaggery is also on offer. If that isn’t enough to eat there is the excellent Myanmar Nourishment Noodle Salad Shop outside No.232, open 5.30am to 11am, only 700Ks per dish. The real find though is the laneway just past no.238 on the righthand side. Here, the vivacious and enthusiastic Daw Marlar has been holding court at her very popular teashop for nearly eight years. Here on offer, apart from brewed tea, fried rice & noodle and rice soup, is a great French Toast (mont kyat au kyaw).
Daw Marlar is very keen to clean up these laneways and have them as places for people to gather and eat. Before the change of government, she and her neighbours used to collect money and have the laneways cleaned. Now money is officially collected from all tenants to be used for cleaning, but the government is now outlawing use of these laneways as eating places, and Daw Marlar may have to move – the price of democracy apparently seems to be even more rules and regulations. At the moment Daw Marlar’s excellent eating establishment is open from 6am to 11am.
There are lots of printing shops in this upper block, plus a number of three-storey 1920s apartment blocks. At No.270 there is a lovely Cantonese Chinese-Myanmar family that have been living at the apartment for over 50 years. They were only too happy to tell us their story.
Having finished walking 39th Street it might be good to stop at the De De Teashop just around the corner at No.255 Bogyoke Aung San Road. Here you can relax, sit under the shade of the large trees, and contemplate what a wonderful place downtown Yangon really is. Enjoy.
Bob Percival’s book, “Walking the Streets of Yangon: The people stories and hidden treasures of cosmopolitan Yangon (Rangoon)” is now available at Rangoon Tea House, Pansuriya, Hla Day, Press Office Café, Easy Café and large bookstores in Yangon. Percival is now planning to do a second book that covers more streets.
