TravelsWithLobo's video: MYANMAR ESSENTIALS - WHY YANGON IS UNIQUE

MYANMAR - 10-DAY FIRST TIME EXPLORER - DAY 1 - EPISODE 2 Asia 2020 - Travel Bucket List ...Travels With Lobo......yes Myanmar was definitely on our Bucket List. Myanmar has been one of the last frontiers of Southeast Asia. As a result it has been put off by many travellers due to unfamiliarity and uncertainly. Despite that it is an amazing destination that should not be missed. So we took our own advice and went there on our MYANMAR - 10-DAY FIRST TIME EXPLORER. Join us as we slowly savour and enjoy every minute of our TEN DAYS. Travel to Myanmar may be halted by Covid 19 but this amazing destination will soon be on the radar of travellers who want to push the destination envelope. Yangon is the most common entry point to Myanmar and that is the route we took as we flew from Siem Reap, Cambodia to Yangon, Myanmar. Yangon , formerly known as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government relocated the administrative functions to the purpose-built city of Naypyidaw [nèpjìdɔ̀] in central Myanmar.[3] With over 5 million people, Yangon is Myanmar's most populous city and its most important commercial centre. Yangon boasts the largest number of colonial-era buildings in Southeast Asia, and has a unique colonial-era urban core that is remarkably intact. The colonial-era commercial core is centered around the Sule Pagoda, which is reputed to be over 2,000 years old. The city is also home to the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda – Myanmar's most sacred Buddhist pagoda. Yangon suffers from deeply inadequate infrastructure, especially compared to other major cities in Southeast Asia. Though many historic residential and commercial buildings have been renovated throughout central Yangon, most satellite towns that ring the city continue to be profoundly impoverished and lack basic infrastructure. Soon after Burma's independence in 1948, many colonial names of streets and parks were changed to more nationalistic Burmese names. In 1989, the current military junta changed the city's English name to "Yangon", along with many other changes in English transliteration of Burmese names. (The changes have not been accepted by many Burmese who consider the junta unfit to make such changes, nor by many publications and news bureaus, including, most notably, the BBC and foreign nations including the United Kingdom and the United States.)[19][20] Since independence, Yangon has expanded outwards. Successive governments have built satellite towns such as Thaketa, North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa in the 1950s to Hlaingthaya, Shwepyitha and South Dagon in the 1980s.[13] Today, Greater Yangon encompasses an area covering nearly 600 square kilometres (230 sq mi).[1] During Ne Win's isolationist rule (1962–88), Yangon's infrastructure deteriorated through poor maintenance and did not keep up with its increasing population. In the 1990s, the current military government's more open market policies attracted domestic and foreign investment, bringing a modicum of modernity to the city's infrastructure. Some inner city residents were forcibly relocated to new satellite towns. Yangon has become much more indigenous Burmese in its ethnic make-up since independence. After independence, many South Asians and Anglo-Burmese left. Many more South Asians were forced to leave during the 1960s by Ne Win's xenophobic government.[18] Nevertheless, sizeable South Asian and Chinese communities still exist in Yangon. The Anglo-Burmese have effectively disappeared, having left the country or intermarried with other Burmese groups. In November 2005, the military government designated Naypyidaw, 320 kilometres (199 mi) north of Yangon, as the new administrative capital, and subsequently moved much of the government to the newly developed city. At any rate, Yangon remains the largest city and the most important commercial center of Myanmar. On 7 May 2005, a series of coordinated bombings occurred in the city of Yangon, Myanmar. Eleven people were killed in the attack, and one of the 162 people that were injured was a member of the LCMS mission team to Myanmar. This is related to the Lutheran Church in Malaysia.