A Journey Elsewhere: City Life on the Yangon Circular Railway

Yangon: an account of a slow and fascinating train journey through an extraordinary city is published in Elsewhere: A Journal of Place.

Life on the Yangon Circular Railway: Illustration by Julia Stone, Elsewhere Journal

Elsewhere was launched in Berlin as a print journal dedicated to writing about place, travel, meandering, deep topography, psychogeography, and edgeland exploring.

In its first two issues it has featured established writers and bloggers such as Laurence Mitchell, Gary Budden, Julian Hoffman and Amy Liptrot whose recent book, The Outrun, about addiction, nature and the Orkney landscape, was recently published to great acclaim. Its features and articles are accompanied by the beautiful illustrations of Julia Stone.

The journal has an international perspective on cities, suburbs, legends, airports, folklore, legends, nature of place and city streetlife. It is an excellent journal featuring excellent writers and bloggers so I am delighted and honoured that Issue 3 includes a piece of writing from me about a fascinating and slow train journey I took through the neighbourhoods of Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar (Burma).

One of the highlights of the Yangon Circular Railway journey was a noisy open air market that had simply hijacked one of the main stations. That, the people watching and an insight into an extraordinary city.

“A hazy golden light pours over the city, the prelude to another beautiful sunset in Myanmar. It is the social hour. Yangonites sit on the lines, chatting away as the train lumbers past them. The stations, sometimes no more than a sign and a concrete strip, have become playgrounds for children and pecking grounds for hens.”

To read the article you can buy the issue or even better a subscription to the journal.

You can follow Elsewhere Journal on its website, blog and Twitter.

You can also read more on my travels through Myanmar (Burma).

Boats, banks & Kipling: Journey on the Ayeyarwady River to Mandalay
Bagan temple ruins: eBiking a medieval Buddhist kingdom
Postcards from Yangon
Urban exploration in Burma