Page 68 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

66 Yangon and around Downtown Yangon
1 six cabinet ministers were assassinated on 19 July 1947; and also the place where the
country’s independence ceremony was conducted the following year. It later served
as the national parliament building until the 1962 coup, since when it has been off
limits. The entire building is currently wrapped in scaffolding pending a decision
about its future and, hopefully, restoration – a massive task, likely to cost at least
$100m and to be “potentially one of the largest historic restoration projects in the
world”, as Al Jazeera described it.

St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral and around
• Junction of Bogyoke Aung San and Bo Aung Kyaw roads • Daily 8.30am–noon &
2–6pm • Free (no photography)
The imposing St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral, immediately north of the Secretariat, is the
city’s principal Catholic place of worship and the country’s largest church. Designed by
Dutch architect Jos Cuypers (son of Pierre Cuypers, creator of Amsterdam’s Central
Station and Rijksmuseum), the building was finished in 1899 in a neo-Gothic style
not dissimilar to that of the rival Holy Trinity Anglican cathedral across the city
(see p.68), topped with a pair of spiky steeples and with an impressively vaulted
white-brick interior decorated with colourful red and blue trimmings.
On the south side of the cathedral is the impressive B.E.H.S. (6) Botahtaung of 1860
– just two of a number of old colonial-era B.E.H.S. (Basic Education High Schools)
which still dot the city. Formerly known as St Paul’s English High School, this was
once one of the most elite schools in Yangon. East of the cathedral, on Theinbyu Road,
the all-girls B.E.H.S. (4) Botahtaung (formerly St Mary’s Convent School) is another fine
old colonial memento still in use today. A fine Sikh temple flanks the southern side of
the school, while across the road is the former Government Press – yet another
handsome red-brick Neoclassical edifice, now sadly derelict.

Sri Devi Temple
Anawrahta Rd, between 50th & 51st sts • Daily 6–11.30am & 4.30–8.30pm • Free
Dedicated to the Hindu mother goddess Devi, the Sri Devi Temple provides spiritual
succour to the many Indian-descended Yangonites living in the subcontinental enclave
around the eastern end of Anawrahta Road (the modern-day descendants of Yangon’s
once omnipresent Indian community who settled in the city during the era of British
rule). The temple features the usual multicoloured gopuram plus red-and-white-striped
walls and an inner shrine manned by a couple of a resident Brahmins.

Botataung Pagoda
• Strand Rd (foreign entrance on east side) • Daily 6am–9pm • K6000
Tucked away on the far eastern side of downtown is the Botataung Pagoda, the
second of colonial Yangon’s two major Buddhist pagodas – the name (literally
“1000 officers”) refers to the soldiers of the king who are said to have formed
a guard of honour to celebrate the arrival here of precious Buddhist relics from
India. The current complex dates from the Mon era, around the same time as the
Shwedagon Pagoda, although it was largely obliterated by a stray RAF bomb in
1943 (they were aiming for the nearby Yangon wharves). Reconstruction work
started on January 4, 1948 – the first day of Burmese independence. During
rebuilding, a previously unknown relic chamber was uncovered containing an
extraordinary treasure-trove of seven hundred items including precious stones,
jewellery, gold, silver and brass statues and – most importantly – a pure gold
stupa-shaped reliquary containing two tiny body relics (“each the size of a mustard
seed”, as it was reported) and what is believed to be a hair relic of the Buddha.

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