11/16: Yangon's Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue & Kandawgyi Lake

I've noticed that for some reason some of the font size in the posts sometimes comes through much larger than it appears in my draft form. I will try and get my 'technical adviser' working on that in his spare time!  

Our last day in Yangon: We had realized the night before that we had toured the city’s tourist sights we had wanted to see so were at a loss as to what to do today. We had checked out online other possibilities but discounted them when we realized either how far away they were from the city center or how lowly rated they were on Trip Advisor. We knew we wanted to return to Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue as we knew it would be open today so we walked in that direction first. 

Street scenes en route to the synagogue:

We purposely walked toward the synagogue back along 26^th St.  where we'd been yesterday. 

Tofu.

Saw a taxi drive OVER the food displayed for sale in the center of the street. What amazing driving as he never hit the food as he threaded his way down the very narrow street. Not sure if we would have wanted to eat any of it though after the car's undercarriage had come so close to it!

Photos from Museah Yeshua Synagogue: 

There were a number of Israelis visiting the synagogue when we arrived - sadly more visitors than there are Jewish families in all of Yangon. We talked to the young rabbi’s sister and noticed from a photo that her brother’s marriage at the synagogue had been the first in more than 20 years. I wondered how long the tiny Jewish community could survive in Yangon.

Letters of condolences on the passing of the former rabbi.

We knew that there are more than a dozen public parks and gardens in Yangon so thought relaxing in one of them sounded delightful. We got another fantastically cheap taxi to Lake Kandawgyi located north of the city and strolled around one section of the park.

We had discovered the previous day that Myanmar is a land of stickers: we got one when entering Schwedagon Pagoda and we needed one again here. I thought we'd only get them at attractions but soon realized that every time we flew on Air KBZ from one city to another around Myanmar, we'd get colored coded stickers to put on our shirts too so that staff could easily figure out that we were getting on the right plane. It felt like we were back in kindergarten again!

Photos from Lake Kandawgyi:

Above and several photos below: A large boat that was transformed into a restaurant.

The taxi driver had dropped us off in an area of the park where there was nothing to see apart from the very photogenic boat/restaurant above and other cafes. There were no park benches we could find to sit and enjoy the lake and no trails to walk on.

I was not 'feeling the heat' THAT much! It had been so hot I had poured water over my face.

We then walked on the crumbling boardwalk around other parts of the lake. We had to be very careful where we walked as so many of the boards bounced up and down when we trod on them. Figured those marked with the 'X' were to be replaced at some point - sure hope it gets done sooner rather than later as many were very unsafe.

We had time galore on our hands, i.e. we were looking for something to do, so were glad we saw a small pagoda that we could visit.

You just got to love the English translations sometimes!

One man's home next to the lake's boardwalk and under the adjacent road.

 We found a quiet spot to read our kindles for a couple of hours before taking a taxi back to our hotel.

Another city, another photo of Steven sampling the local beer!

I was surprised and disappointed that we found so little to see and do in Myanmar's capital city. We never did find out where the country's national buildings are, like the court, gallery, the equivalent of parliament, etc - there was nothing like that in any of the literature we had or could find online. We were both enthralled having seen Schwedagon Pagoda last night but, in hindsight, one day in Yangon would have been plenty for me.

Posted on 11/30 from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.