Rangoon
January 9, 2008
Starting January 14th, 2008, the Engleson clan will embark on their one month winter holiday, which will take them into both Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand. The first leg of the journey will begin in Yangon (Rangoon) where we will most likely spend four days visiting. Yangon is the largest city (4 million people) and is also where the capital lies. The British began their colonization of Burma in the early 1600’s, governed it for 200+ years and then annexed it over to India in 1886; and then in 1937 Burma became a separate colony. After many tumultuous years of struggle, the military seized control of Burma in 1987 and then in 1989 changed the name of the country and everything else in between - hence the post-1989 name of Yangon to the previous Rangoon. As stated earlier, I prefer the old school days and will refer to it in the older Burmese fashion from here on in. The major point of interest in Rangoon is easily the Shwedagon Pagoda to which I am very excited to go and visit. Other than that, I understand Rangoon has a very diverse mixture of people living there and I would just like to tool around the city and soak in as much of the culture as I can. Bar none, I think Rangoon is the coolest city name out there and it is going to be very neat to say I have visited there.
