Burmese Days 12: Sensory Overload at Thiri Mingalar Market

If you like wholesale produce markets, they do not get much bigger than the Thiri Mingalar market in west Rangon, near the Hlaing River and west of Inya Lake and Yangon University. This is another place off the normal tourist route, but more and more foreigners are gradually showing up, and the local merchants seem delighted to have curious visitors. The market is huge and consists of three rows of parallel steel sheds (the aerial photograph is from ESRI® maps and data).

I never quite figured out the geography, but the first area my friends and I explored was the fruit area. Wow, nice produce, fresh from the farms.

Watermelons go flying. Strong guys to do this all day.

Bananas and plantains - more than I have ever seen in one place before.

Now for the good smelly stuff: the dried fish and shrimp. The shrimp are used as a flavoring agent in Burmese cuisine.

These tubs contain fermenting fish mash in the process of becoming fish sauce. Yum. Think of this when you buy a bottle of fish sauce in one of our sterile US supermarkets.

These carrots might be pretty good, as well.

If you are hungry, there is a big cafeteria on site. We were a bit dubious about the dish-washing facilities.

Betel nut chewing is a big business in Burma. The young ladies wrap betel leaf, areca nut, and slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) into a little package, which may also contain tobacco, cardamon, or other spice. Rural people and workers in certain industries, especially truck and bus drivers, chew the betel as a stimulant. It stains their teeth and lips red. When we lived in Rangoon in the 1950s, walls were stained red with spit-out betel juice up to a height of about 6 ft. Chewing betel has serious health effects, especially malignant tumors in the mouth area.

These are the delivery boys, who pedal amazingly heavy loads in bicycle sidecars. Selfie photos are the big thing now.

Some families tend small stores.

I cannot recall what these shredded white roots are, but they sell tons of it every day. And the guys check their phones whenever possible. 

The Thiri Mingalar market is an amazing tableau of colors, shapes, smells, and people for a photographer. It seems safe, and there are other foreign visitors present. Highly recommended! Next time, I will take a film camera and try black and white. Wear boots or high shoes because there is a lot of squishy stuff underfoot.

These are digital images from a Panasonic G3 camera with Olympus 9-18mm lens or a Fujifilm X-E1 camera, with most RAW files processed with PhotoNinja software.

Burmese Days 11: Bo Kyoke Road Sidewalk Markets

Dear Readers, in the previous post, I visited Scott's Market in downtown Rangoon. That seemed mostly oriented to the tourist trade and to arts and textiles. But tiny street markets are where many Burmese buy their supplies, vegetables, and foods. Across Bo Kyoke Road from Scott's market, the entire sidewalk for several blocks is one continuous mass of vendors, crowds, vegetables, food stands, and chickens.

This is one of the family photographs from the same area in 1957 (Anscochrome taken with a Leica IIIC camera). During my recent rip, a couple of people who saw a print said this might have been at a cinema that was formerly on that road.

Today, the scene is more crowded and food vendors have taken over. The huge citrus fruit in the second photograph are pomelo (Citrus grand is), which I found to be a lot of work to peel.

You can find almost any kind of green vegetable or grass you could imagine. I wonder how the vendors rent space for their chunk of sidewalk? 

Want a snack? These fried guys are full of protein and are a Burmese delicacy.

Burmese are very literate, and we saw a good number of book-sellers with stands jammed full of books and pamphlets.  

This is 27th street, lined with vendors. It is cheerful on a sunny day, sweltering in summer, and a mess in the rain.

Want fast food? Well, here it is locally-sourced and prepared.

A few blocks further east near the Sule Pagoda, the shops are more industrial with tools, locks, plumbing, and metal-works. The way industries cluster reminds me of the flea market in downtown Athens or Kathmandu.

In the next article, we will go to a giant wholesale market near the Yangon River.

Photographs taken with a Panasonic G3 with Olympus 9-18mm lens, Fuji X-E1, and a Nexus 4 phone.

Burmese Days 10: Plenty to see at Scott's Market, Rangoon

If you like crafts markets, they do not get much more vibrant than the Bogyoke Aung San Market (Burmese: ဗိုလ်ချုပ်အောင်ဆန်းဈေး) also known as the Scott's, on Bogyoke Aung San Road in downtown Rangoon. I think most locals still call it by the old English name, and a taxi driver will immediately know what you mean, even if he does not speak English.

The market consists of seven parallel halls separated by cobblestone alleys. Some of the buildings are 2-storey, but the central hall has a long chamber with a tall cast-iron arched ceiling. Balconies cross the alleys in some areas, so you can stay on the second floor and cross to other sections. The complex was built in 1926 by the former British administration, and was named after the Municipal Commissioner of the time, Mr. Gavin Scott.

The market is divided into different disciplines. The front has vendors of clothing and fabrics. The higher-end fashion stores have air-conditioning (very welcome).

They seem to sell a lot of underwear here.

Here are some of the lovely ladies of the market. Do they try on the underwear?

Deep in the buildings, hundreds of ladies work on sewing machines. The light level was so low, I could not see well, and the heat was muggy and wilting (at least to this wimpy Westerner).

We visited some of the gem and silver dealers. Burma is famous for rubies and sapphires, and the silver craftsmen do amazing work. The coffee pot in the photograph above is one of the family souvenirs from the 1950s. The decoration shows scenes from the life of Buddha. My mother remembered seeing the artist with a mallet and nail working on the patterns.

Look out from the balconies, and you see some of the old British buildings in varying states of preservation. It's a fascinating scene.

Immediately west of Scott's Market is the imposing brick Anglican Holy Trinity Cathedral. A magnificent construction of brick the, cathedral was designed by Robert Chisholm, an architect from Madras, in what Wikipedia calls the Indo-Saracenic style. Construction began when Lord Dufferin, the Viceroy of India, laid the cornerstone in 1886, and the project was completed in 1894. A magnificent pipe organ was destroyed in World War II and could not be repaired. The scale of this cathedral underscores the size and wealth of the Anglican community.

We will look at street markets in the next article.