Place: Highway between Yangon and Mon state

Our second day in Myanmar! Our first day was quite busy, regrouping with old friends as well as a new one, and scurrying through the sights of Yangon before we headed off to explore the rest of the country. Yangon is much more developed than we expected. More than most of what we saw of India. The juxtaposition felt very stark actually – much cleaner and way less chaotic. Apparently this is all quite recent of a development though. Just 5 years ago SIM cards weren’t a thing, and KFC only started expanding here 2 years ago, if that’s an indication of anything.

Food: Mohinga

These food stands are quite common along the highway, bustling with people coming in for breakfast. One of the most common things to eat for breakfast (as well as one of my new favorite foods) is mohinga. It’s a rice noodle dish with a fish based broth, and fried fish cakes and fried chickpea cakes as toppings. The rice noodle soaks in the broth and the savoriness is very intense. The fried toppings give it a nice contrasting texture.

Observing the others eating here, people seem to eat using a mix of their hands and utensils. A soup like mohinga of course warrants a spoon, but many people ate rice dishes with their hands like we saw in Northeast India. Also people do a pursed lips kissing sound to call the wait staff over.