Downtown Yangon is a melting pot where tradition meets modernity, where different ethnic communities — Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims and Christians — live together. As a tourist visiting for the first time, you will be swept away by the commotion and buzz around you. You will be intrigued by the unusual things people sell, carry, cook or eat on the street. Their daily life unfolds in front of you. They rush, sleep, sell, negotiate, cook, eat and play on the street. Walking these perpendicular and numerically named streets, another legacy left by the British, I forget the hustle and bustle around me, my eyes taking in the architecture of the different buildings of a rich past.

• Tags: Cristina Maria Chiorean, Issue 4, Myanmar, Yangon