Another short street – two blocks between the back of Junction City and a small patch of green on Merchant Road. The upper block is “sewing street”, selling everything you need for sewing, from machines to threads, beads, sequins and zippers. And behind the sewing stalls on either side are Blocks B and C of Thein Gyi Zay, downtown Yangon’s largest covered market.
The lower block has a couple of good bike shops, and some hardware shops.
25th and 26th Streets also show the religious diversity of downtown Yangon – on 25th Street there is a synagogue (also a Blue Plaque heritage building) and a mosque, and on 26th Street a Hindu temple, a Buddhist temple and another mosque.

Other things that caught our eye:
*1 The five covered markets that make up Thein Gyi Zay Blocks A, B, C, D and E span the streets from Shwedagon Pagoda Road to Kon Zay Tan Road. Thein Gyi Zay A and B are the older, more traditional covered markets, but Thein Gyi Zay C is the weirdest – with broad black and white tiled staircases, shops piled high with old sewing machines, and empty department stores.
*2 A traditional naan baker (and seller, if you get there early enough). Hot bread slapped on the side of an earthenware oven until it is cooked. Yum! They open at 6am until everything sold, and again at 5pm. At other times, all you see is the small blue and white door, sadly closed.
*3 A shop selling weights and scales of all sizes.
*4 A couple of places to recycle your paper – or to see how urban recycling works.

other keywords: hardware, fabric