It is lunchtime and I leave the office of the Yangon Heritage Trust to head over to Bank Street, a shady little side alley lined with the monumental architecture of buildings that face out on Pansodan and Sule Pagoda Road. But Bank Street is not merely lined with colonial architecture. Spread across the pavements is a series of food stalls, each complete with tiny stools and tables in garish colours. 1800 Kyats, or 1.4 dollars, buy me a full portion of rice, a bowl of egg in tasty meat broth, some chicken, a platter of vegetables and chili dip, a bowl of soup, and unlimited refills of delicious green tea. Needless to say that each such meal presents me with a wider range of flavours than all of my native German cuisine taken together.

The waiters are fast and efficient but also friendly. My tea cup is never empty for any longer than twenty seconds – that kind of attentiveness would be hard to beat even for a five-star hotel. Other customers keep flocking in, most of them wearing the traditional longyi (a kind of chequered sarong) and a white shirt. Many of the other customers, I suspect, work at the nearby banks and government offices. Some of them also have a smile and a nod for me. I like to think it is a sign that they appreciate me sharing their lunch rather than treading the well-worn path to Sharky’s further up the street. Sharky (whose real name is U Ye Htut Win), a legend among Yangon’s expats, returned from twenty years in Switzerland to start an upmarket deli store in Yangon. In his new downtown branch, not five minutes away from my office, he adds artisan pizzas and salads to his offering of charcuterie and cheeses (all home-made here in Myanmar). While Sharky’s provides all the comforts of home and a welcome refuge during bouts of shaky bowels, lunching at Bank Street provides me with a much more riveting experience.

It is all too easy as an outsider to romanticise the poverty we encounter in countries like Burma. Is it not utterly charming? Does not the exoticism of deprivation satisfy our more voyeuristic instincts? But that is not the only possible response. If you ask me whether I want things in Bank Street to stay the same, I would answer, ‘Certainly not!’I want the staff of these charming roadside stalls to have access to comprehensive health care. I want the ugly appendix to the glamorous turrets of the district court to be demolished. I want the pavement, currently a forest of trip hazards, to be easily walkable for an old lady. I want the children who wait on so many of the tables on Bank Street to go to school.

But I also hope, I hope passionately, that the atmosphere which pervades Bank Street today can be preserved for decades to come. The easy joviality that comes from sharing lunch across those little plastic stools and tables which are densely packed together on the pavement*. The sense of community. The shade of the mighty trees which still line this street. Not to mention the flavours of the cuisine. Because all of this adds up to a truly precious experience.

Interestingly, I am not the only one to think so. The urban planning consultants who visited the Yangon Heritage Trust last week were just as struck. They promptly proposed that we might develop what is called an ‘area action plan’ for this street, one which would serve to preserve and share this experience which I enjoyed so thoroughly. And that way, we might not just save Yangon’s historical buildings but its unbuilt heritage which makes up the real character of this unique city.

In my last post, I mentioned why I came to Myanmar in the first place. But everyday experiences like lunch on Bank Street are the reason why I want to stay.

* I should add that, on reflection, it may have been the sight of a 1.95-metre white male perching on one of these 30cm stools that made the other customers smile at me.