We
were very happy with out choice of hotel. The Yuzana Garden is the
former Steel Brothers 'chummery' and is in walking distance of
the Shwedagon Pagoda, Scott Market, Sule Pagoda and the Yangon river.
The
balcony of our Junior Suite overlooked the residence, gardens, pool and
tennis court of the British Ambassador. It once belonged to the
Irrawaddy Flotilla Company and During World War ll became General Aung
San's Burma Independence (later Burma Defense) Army Headquarters,
General Aung San and Ne Win slept under it's roof.
Lovely
old buildings like these in the city center, once housed thousands
of squatters. Following their resettlement in new towns the area was
spruced up. Laid out on a North American grid system the streets are
easy to find your way around. Many were renamed after independence
and some still have the old and new signage which can be confusing.
Across the
street from this Victorian pile is Mahabandoola Gardens, in the center of
which is an independence monument. It's Southern boundary is
Merchant Street home to the American Embassy. The roads around the
area are closed to traffic and photography is banned. Some have called it Yangon's Tiananmen Square, having been the scene of
much violence in the recent past.
This is also the area where
money can be exchanged on the black market. You will be approached
but we had little success as the only rate better than the hotel was for
$100US bills, we didn't want to change that much at any one time.
