Government seeks to tame Hlaing Tharyar, Yangon’s wild west: The government is dividing Hlaing Tharyar into two townships, in a desperate bid to bring order to an industrial suburb beset by criminal gangs, shoddy infrastructure and over-population.
IT'S 5 pm and the area around Hlaing Tharyar Township’s Bogyoke bus stop is deceptively quiet. The small food stalls on No. 5 Main Road are mostly empty, and knots of motorbike taxi drivers wait for customers to spill out of the nearby factories.
Among them is Chit Ko, sitting astride his motorbike as he chews a quid of betel and occasionally spits a streak of red juice on the road. “Wait and see, brother!” he says. “In half an hour you won’t be able to move because of the crowd.”