Yangon's circular railway is a journey through history. The 46-kilometre loop, with 38 stations, has linked the city's rural fringes to its centre for more than sixty years, built in British colonial times and still carrying over 85,000 people a day.
You board at Yangon Central Railway Station — a 1954 building by the Burmese architect Sithu U Tin — and settle in for a slow ride through surprisingly green suburbs. The journey is the destination: children playing chinlone, monks chatting on the benches, vendors working the narrow aisles with trays of fruit and fried snacks.
A working railway
This is no tourist train. Market traders use it to haul produce into the city, and the carriages fill and empty with the rhythm of ordinary life. Depending on timing, you can hop off at a railway market like Mingaladon, where the stalls sell everything from polished army boots to sugar-cane sweets.
Our tip: wear a longyi, and choose one of the older non-air-conditioned carriages if you can. The windows are open, the breeze is welcome, and the conversations come easily.
