5 Best Nightlife in Yangon (Rangoon), Myanmar

50th Street is a proper pub, one that's been honing its craft since it opened in 1997. Today, the bi-level bar remains enormously popular with expats, foreign tourists, and a few middle-class Burmese. The extensive menu includes a selection of pizzas; portions are hearty, the better to be washed down with a good selection of beers, wines by the glass, and decent cocktails.

For a whole barbecued fish and a draft beer, 19th street in Yangon's Chinatown is unbeatable. There are restaurants along both sides of the street, with little outdoor grills and plastic tables and chairs set up, the stools often occupied by locals in their undershirts and pajama bottoms.

The Shwedagon Pagoda is at its most gorgeous at night and, from Alfa Hotel's rooftop bar, you can see it clearly in the distance, a gilded piece of history shining bright. It's a simple bar where people gather for a drink or two and quiet conversation. A local saung harpist places plays nightly from 7 to 9. Because the rooftop is open to the elements, the bar is closed during Myanmar's rainy season, roughly June to September.

When the Strand Hotel opened in 1901, its swanky bar was the place to see and be seen. Today, Yangon is a very different place and the bar is still pretty, if pretty staid, except on Friday night, when it comes alive with expats who giddily pack in for two-for-one happy hour, which runs 5 to 10 pm.