Ruili

Ruili is a small town in the far south of the Dehong prefecture of Yunnan, it lies smack dab on the border with Myanmar. The town is quite similar in appearance to Jinghong with lush surroundings and monsoon like rains, only it's scaled down to 1/10 the size and has most westernized things stripped out of it. If you're Chinese you can cross over the border to Myanmar for the day and visit the China-Myanmar friendship street, this connects Ruili to the town of Muse. Although I wasn't allowed, I could feel the Myanmar side bleeding over into China anyway.

Danuphyu Daw Saw Yee Myanma @ Yangon

Located on 29th street, close to the hotel I'm staying in is traditional Burmese shop called Danuphyu Daw Saw Yee Myanma. The dishes you find here can be found on the street for cheaper, however here you might have a balance of better hygiene, yet not served with a western makeover. Ordering is pretty simple, point at whichever pan looks appealing and see what happens; I chose a couple of veggie trays and a piece of pork and within 5 minutes I had a collection of dishes on my table. I can't say this was my favorite south east asian dish, however the pork was tasty and the value for my k5,000 (4 usd) is not something I'll contest.

View from 29th street

The menu

Dallah Tsunami Village @ Yangon

To access Dallah, all you need to do is hop onto a ferry across from the Strand hotel, after about 10 minutes you'll be on the south side of the Yangon river surrounded by trishaws and motorbikes fighting for your attention. Dallah is far too big to walk, so you have no choice to but to negotiate a deal with someone if you want to see the whole area.

View of the Dallah side of the river from the ferry

Exiting the ferry

Mingaladon Bazaar Station @ Yangon

Advertised on blogs as the cheapest and easiest way to see how real Yangonian's live, The Circular Train takes you from Yangon Central Railway Station all the way up and around the international airport and back. I hopped on with little knowledge about my sight seeing options along the way, and by the time I actually found a map that listed the stop names, we had already passed the few I recognized.

Yangon Central Train Station

Everyone had to switch platforms