As the hill slopes upwards, the dome of the Shwedagon Pagoda comes into view, gleaming like a gilded teardrop. No account of Yangon is complete without citing Rudyard Kipling’s description of the holiest pagoda of Myanmar’s former capital as “a beautiful, winking wonder that blazed in the sun”. These words hint at the pure magic that surrounds not just this golden stupa, but the entire city that it overlooks. 

As I arrive in a part of town with a skyline that has scarcely changed since independence in 1948, the streets have a distinctly nostalgic ambience. Colonial-style mansions evocative of England in the 1920s stand in gardens behind high walls, their cupolas and whitewashed Palladian façades visible through clouds of cascading bougainvillea.

Approaching The Governor’s Residence, I enjoy the shade of a towering banyan tree, beneath which is a terracotta pot of cool water from which travellers may take a drink—an ancient local tradition. Bellboys in grey longyi greet me in Burmese and English, and strike a gong in welcome.

Ahead is a covered walkway, running the length of an enormous tropical garden, over emerald pools and lily ponds. Buddhists build such bridges to gain merit; a way of building a path into the future. A coucal—the region’s cuckoo—chirps a low boop-boop from a bottlebrush tree.