Construction

In many countries the construction business seems to be a slow sector at the moment, not here though. It seems like everybody is building. Houses, shopping malls, car sales centres (yes, I've spotted 2 more...), hotels, and what not. in the area around the school there are 2 houses being build. Well, houses.....  the buildings are huge. Rich Myanmar have a penchant for elaborate designs preferable with Greek-style columns (sometimes as tall as the three stories of the house in question). They also love to put concrete over every bit of space that wasn't used for the house. Heaven forbid you'd have a garden! As a fellow teacher (Myanmar) exclaimed years ago when we looked out over a concrete yard somewhere: " do you know how expensive it is to have a garden designed!"  Duh...  What happened to the good old fashioned 'do-it-yourself'?

Prices for land and buildings have gone up even more recently. Not that they were anywhere near cheap before. You'd be thinking you'd buy a piece of land in downtown New York instead of Yangon. And you don't get much for it either....

They're now building hotels on the double as well. There is a shortage of hotel rooms since many tourists and even more business people pour in. But of course, building does take time. They better hurry though before Myanmar prices itself out of the tourist market. I read eh other day that a hotel that charged around $80 for a hotel room last year, now wants more than $240 for that same room...  And now, I won't tell you which hotel that is...

Yangon, which  used to be so green is rapidly turning into another typicla Asian city. I hope they will be able to preserve the beautiful parts. Though it seems people here do not know how quickly they can tear down buildings and houses that would be qualified as cultural heritage anywhere else. If this continues, there will be little left on the charm of Yangon...