Stay, Stray, Play and Feast: Colonial Yangon: A Tour to Yangon’s Historic Past (Yangon, ASEAN’s Jewel Series 3 )

Colonial Yangon
A Tour to Yangon’s Historic Past
Yangon, ASEAN’s Jewel Series 3

Yangon, Myanmar’s former capital and the country’s biggest city,
has the densest concentration beautiful of colonial- era buildings
anywherein Asia. have barely been touched since the early 1900s.

What used to be the cornerstone of the British Empire,

Yangon’s imposing buildings is a testimony on how

stately and how progressive this bustling port city then.

Touring around the downtown area

beginning from the Sule Pagoda,

…would take the tourists to one of the most majestic

colonial structure in Yangon: the Yangon City Hall.

Pyatthat roofed Yangon City Hall building was built in 1926

is syncretic Burmese architecture, featuring designed by U Tin

a Burmese architect , who also designed Central Railway Station.

The building is listed on the Yangon City Heritage List.

Right beside it is the Ayeyarwade Bank

formerly Rowe and Co Department Store-
which apparently was once among the

most upscale department stores in Asia.

It was transformed to Ayeyarwady Bank headquarters

in 2012 and listed among Yangon’s heritage buildings.

Also nearby is the striking Yangon Regional Court

or the former High Court Building is an iconic colonial-

era structure noted for clock tower and its red- bricked

exterior typical. of British Queen Annestyle architecture.

It was designed by architect James Ransome and was built in 1905.

This beautiful building is listed on the Yangon City Heritage List.

Just in front is the Independence Monument

located at the verdant Maha Bandula Park.

The Myanma Economic Bank caught my attention.

It was not on the list of the heritage buildings, but

the beautiful classic church like structure blended

very well with the city’s historic heritage center.

The Heritage Hotel Kempinski Yangon right at

the corner of Strand Road, is the first Rosewood

luxury property in Myanmar is set to open soon.

Located opposite the riverside cruise terminal

it was the former Police Commissioner’s Office,

another historic colonial building built in 1927.

Right across is monolithic Yangon Stock Exchange.

It was a grandiose building with massive heavy cut-

stone walls making the building appear impenetrable.

It was built as a building for the Reserve Bank of India

in 1935 as British India’s bank and became a dominion

of Great Britain when Burma separated from British India.

The red-brick 1912 Customs House, designed

by John Begg, one the Raj's principal architects,

…is one of the few colonial buildings in Yangon still

fulfilling its original function nearly for a century.

The Yangon Divisional Court Building was constructed in 1900 under
the aegis of the British colonial administration. This colonial-era building
originally functioned as the administration's currency department office.

Nearby is the Myanmar Port Authority building.

An imposing colonial structure dating back to 1928.

Rangoon had the busiest port in the world in the early

20th century and the building restoration to its former

glory as a testimony to the Yangon’s great storied past.

The Strand Hotel, was built by the Sarkies Brothers,

Aviet and Tigran in 1901 named after its address, at

92 Strand Road facing the Hlaing or Yangon River.

This beautiful Victorian-style hotel is one of the most famous and

one of the most luxurious hotels in Yangon and Southeast Asia.

Yangon’s British Embassy is an eye turner because of its fine

lattice windows and an intricate entrance awning covering the

sidewalk. It was built in 1900 originally as the headquarters of a

Glasgow-based shipping and insurance company J. & F. Graham.

The British has made an excellent job of preserving

the building and has been kept in immaculate shape.

Nearby is Yangon’s red-brick Central Post Office Building.

Built in 1908 this lovely beaux-arts iron portico was originally

the office of Bulloch Brothers & Co, a Scottish shipping and

insurance agency which also on rice trading business in Burma.

The post office was relocated here
by the British government in 1936.

On our way out of the city center, I caught a glimpse

of The Envoy. A restaurant set amidst old impeccably

restored colonial building on Bo Aung Kyaw Street,

I was impressed and I am glad how the city is preserving
its colonial heritage- and I am glad how these awesome,
historic, old buildings are being coaxed back to life.