Mingalarbar Myanmar: Life on the Track

I've had the Yangon Circular Train on my exploring list for all my visits here and now I've finally done it.

Central Station

This loop railway was built by the British in 1959 and circles Yangon. I stayed for the entire 3 hour journey to see a slice of local life and how the landscape changes from city concrete to the countryside of paddy fields and market gardens before circling back to the city. The train rocks and rolls, shakes and rumbles along while it covers 45 kilometres and stops at 39 stations at speeds of between a slow jog and a quick sprint on the longer stretches.

Sights at Central Station

Ticket Office

Circular train route

Cleaning the carriages

The train stops at each station for only a minute or two, hardly giving people long enough to load themselves and their goods on. They quickly clamber on and help each other lift, push and lug sacks, baskets and boxes through the doorways and windows before moving off.

About halfway through the trip, we came across a huge bustling market on the northern outskirts of Yangon. At this point the largest number of passengers board with their very enormous bags of purchases.

It pays to travel like the locals and hang your head out the window, otherwise you're likely to miss what's coming up. There's so much to see and I didn't want to miss anything. (I missed two photo opportunities, a duck farm and a group of men who had cocks in cages and a couple of the birds fighting).

I had numerous changes of travelling companions. My first was a very charming young man and we travelled about a quarter of the way together. He worked for Ooreedoo, (our telecom provider). He was very keen to practise his better than average English and before we parted company we each took a selfie on our phones. He quickly shouted his helpline number should I have any phone problems and he was off.

For the price of my 20cent ticket I was nicely entertained for the morning in my non-air conditioned carriage. I could have paid 50cents for air conditioning, but that wouldn't have been near as much fun.

Vendors hop off and on the train