Summit Parkview, Yangon

I'm back in Yangon and this time, instead of Novotel Max, I was put up for a night at Summit Parkview. It was an okay hotel from the outside, slightly smaller and less impressive than Novotel but once inside, it looks great.

As it is a smaller hotel, it only has six floors. My room on the topmost floor has a view of the whimsical clock tower at Mahagandalo Street in the distance.

My room was quite pleasant with a good-sized sofa and plenty of pillows on the king bed. Mattress was a little lumpy but I was too tired to mind much. I would say it was a good place to stay as it's walking distance to Shwedagon Pagoda. They have free wifi and even a welcome drink!

I love their bottles of toiletries but looks aside, they are quite hard to flow out and the quantity was too little for more than two showers!

Only one restaurant in the hotel though. It's good enough if the price is right for visiting the city. There's a whole row of restaurants nearby down the road so I guess options for food are aplenty. However, during my stay the hot water in the shower was quite problematic. It was hot for a while but slowly became cold and no matter which way you turn the shower knob, it did not stay at the same temperature. I found this very annoying as I did not relish having cold showers early in the morning.

Maha Bandula Park, Yangon

The Maha Bandula Park is a Central Park in Yangon as it is right smack in the city centre. Just a stone's throw away from Sule Pagoda, it is a convenient attraction to visit if only for a breath of fresh air after being in the city for a while.

The Independence Monument is very prominent in the background surrounded by a few chinte, mythical creatures reminiscent of gryphons of the western legend.

Heh! Blurred out my colleagues in case they don't appreciate seeing their own faces in my blog.

Entrance is free and there's plenty of locals milling around for picnic etc. A quick pass-through will suffice. In the evening in front of the park you can see their traffic police directing the massive amount of cars and motorbikes.

Sule Pagoda, Yangon

Sule Pagoda can't be missed when you are in the city of Yangon. The silhouette of the pagoda is a useful "compass" of sorts as it is one of the highest structure within the centre of the city. As one of the oldest pagoda (older than the Shwedagon) in the city, it is believed to contain a single hair from Gautama Buddha and built 2500 years ago. The pagoda is also allegedly the home of the powerful nat spirit Sularata.

I find the colonial building surrounding the pagoda more interesting and did not enter the pagoda because it could be viewed easily from the outside and some reviews I read did not seem to be very impressive. The entrance fee is 3000 kyats if you are interested and there are four entrances to the pagoda. It looks like an average temple in Malaysia with the only difference being we enter temples for free regardless of tourists or not in my hometown. LOL.

I would recommend taking a few shots of the pagoda from outside or better, from the overhead bridge a bit of a distance away. I did not take any photos outside the pagoda itself as it was rather crowded.

Sule Pagoda
Opening hours: 6am-8pm
Entrance fee: 3000 kyats

Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon

Shwedagon Pagoda is probably the most prolific pagoda in Yangon. Its compound covers about 114 acres at Singuratta Hill nearby the Royal Lake, and over the years, the pagoda has been renovated to impressive heights; standing at over 110m now. The most remarkable element of the gilded pagoda is not merely its grand gold colour but the fact that they have real treasure hidden beneath the dome of the pagoda and gold bricks was used for part of its construction. In fact, it is said to have over 4500 diamonds in the dome and one of the largest is 72 carats! It is indeed mind-boggling but the top area is restricted so I guess that information will remain unproven. My colleagues and I spent about 2 hours here as we went during late afternoon and waited for it to become dark because my colleagues wanted to see the pagoda with the lights on.

The entrance fee was 8000 kyats for foreigners and you get a sticker to identify your payment. I would advice preparing a plastic bag to carry around your footwear as no shoes or slippers are permitted in the area. I wouldn't advice keeping your shoes in the locker as well because there are different exits from the pagoda and it would be quite a far walk from one exit to another. My only complaint would be the sticky floor and stairs on the climb up to the pagoda as we were required to go bare-foot and the less-than-hygienic surfaces did not impress any of us. Wet wipes are recommended and NO socks if you want to spare them. Flit flops will be best as they can be washed when you are back. And the stairs can be tiring. I think there's like hundreds of steps to climb! Okay, maybe less but it feels that way.

I think the pagoda is worth a visit. The architecture and beauty of the structure are amazing, a testament to its 2500 years of history. The temples, stupas and statues surrounding the main pagoda are astounding with their complex designs too. Not to be missed when in Yangon!

Forgive the awkward photos. I lost the original that I have painstakingly edited thanks to the apps called Blogo which did not post successfully as it seemed to tell me. After I have deleted the copies and finally checked a few days later, I realised only my text was posted. Sigh! Never again!

Bogyoke Aung San Market, Yangon

Bogyoke Aung San Market is THE Market to go to for knick knacks and other souvenirs from Myanmar. You can find precious stones, jade, textiles, magnets etc in the market. 

The market itself consists of a few blocks of buildings and streets in between. If you are interested to look at every stall or meander slowly around, this will easily take up your whole morning or whole afternoon. However, if you are just there for photos and to look around; an hour will suffice. They have plenty of art pieces for sale too.

 The market is a popular tourist spot and its structure is listed as one of Yangon's city heritage. The sprawling buildings looks impressive despite being built in the 1930s (1926). It was known as Scott Market before but was renamed after the General Aung San when Myanmar got its independence.

It's a must-visit in Yangon if you are in the city. The exchange rate here is rumoured to be one of the best but when my colleague changed MYR here, the rate was not even as good as the one offered at Hilton Yangon. So I guess it depends on your haggling too, even for the exchange rates.

The Square Restaurant, Novotel Max Yangon

This is probably the most frequented restaurant in the hotel. The daily free breakfast buffet is here and they have daily lunch and dinner buffet too. Initially, as I didn't know the options in the other restaurants, I frequented here for all my meals.

Buffet here is quite average with limited choices except for their special dinner buffet on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Breakfast buffet could be pretty boring when you have them for five days in a row. The only interesting part would probably be their gigantic fresh orange juicer which involves tumbling a whole tray of fresh oranges, skin and all, into the machine and it would squeeze out the juice from the whole fruit.

Lunch buffet would be a repeat of the breakfast with the addition of more mains instead of the usual breakfast fare. The same for dinner except that on Wednesday, you get fresh sashimi and lots of seafood on top of the usual fare. They even have a band on Wednesday. For alcohol lover, there's always free beer during their dinner buffet but Wednesday include free wine both red and white.

My first dinner here was ala carte as I wasn't feeling too good to enjoy buffet food. However, it was quite disappointing. The soup was bland and clumpy, and their salad dressing was horrible! I think I ordered the vegetable cream soup or something like that. To be fair, the salad came with the club sandwiches I ordered but I would have preferred having none of it if they tasted like that. The sandwiches was alright. For something that cost nearly USD20-25, I would have expected better.

Unless your food is sponsored, I wouldn't recommend having your dinner here on other days except on their special buffets.

Takumi-Ya, Novotel Max Yangon

Like I mentioned before, this is one of the restaurant available in house the hotel. It's a Japanese restaurant but serves mostly BBQ DIY dishes. It reminded me more of a Korean BBQ rather than Japanese especially when the accompaniments include Kimchi. Out of all the restaurants available, this is my favourite. I will definitely be back if I ever stay here again.

The meat was well-seasoned and tender. I love them although I don't understand why there are offals in the set. PS: My set was beef and didn't have any offals I think but my colleague who ordered seafood and chicken set had them in their sets.

Sets during lunch hours vary from USD18-28; and are quite filling. They even gave free coffee once you finished your meal so it's a nice gesture.

Novotel Max Yangon, Myanmar

My stay here for 5 days 4 nights was quite comfortable, despite suffering from a bout of food poisoning from home. The standard room I had was complete with a fluffy albeit a little tall king-sized bed and house-keeping was prompt so it was an enjoyable experience. The room was quite spacious too! I guess the only complaint I have is probably the lack of view but as it's the basic room, I guess views come
at a different price.

Overall, the service was good even though there was quite a bit of misunderstanding as not all their staff understood English. They were very accommodating despite all that and would try their best to help.
The hotel is not located in the city itself so taking a cab to town would be advisable as it's not very expensive to do so. Fare can be haggled to about 2000-3000kyat per car.

Nevertheless, there is a small-ish mall located nearby where groceries or basic toiletries can be purchased. When I was there, they were preparing for the Chinese New Year celebration so lion dance practice was going on outside the mall.

I tried most of their restaurants except the French and my favourite would probably be their Japanese (even though I felt labelling it Korean would be more appropriate after looking at their menu). More on their restaurants in my next post...

Royal Pavillion Chinese Restaurant, Novotel Max Yangon

As one of the in-house restaurants in Novotel Max Yangon, this joint looks nice and has a lot of Chinese-inspired decorations and furnishings. The buffet at USD22 per pax for unlimited dimsum and Chinese dishes seemed quite reasonable compared to the other buffets in the hotel.

The buffet menu boasts of quite a selection and I couldn't resist taking a few photos before our meal. I went with my colleagues although not all of them decided to take the buffet as it was not Halal.

I was anticipating a rather good meal because of the promising menu and their service was again pretty impressive with the waiter helpfully giving some recommendations. Following his advice, we let him have free rein in ordering but I regretted that decision once the food arrived. To be fair, I was still nursing a tender stomach after a bad bout of food poisoning before the trip but my colleague and I found the dimsum underwhelming.

Granted, aesthetically the food look very appealing but upon taking a few bites, we shared a few similar complaints. The skin of most of their dimsums are slightly too thick and chewy, their seasonings are too sweet as to savoury and some are too bland. I'm not sure whether our requirements are a little too high but dimsum joints in Malaysia generally boasted a better quality.

Oh oh and their roasted meat were quite disappointing. The roast pork lacked the requisite crackling skin and had quite hard, crunchy ones; the roasted sweet pork slightly too cloying and sweet and the duck was passable at best.

All the same, this place has excellent service but might need some work on their products. Will I revisit? Maybe...but maybe for their stir-fried dishes?