The Strand Hotel on Strand Road, built in 1901 by the Sarkies Brothers (who also built Raffles in Singapore and the E&O in Penang), is one of the great colonial hotels of Asia. Its heyday was the early 20th century, when Strand Road was the commercial heart of British Rangoon. Somerset Maugham, Rudyard Kipling, and George Orwell all passed through.
The hotel is expensive to stay in, but the bar and restaurant are open to non-guests. A sundowner at the Strand Bar is one of Yangon's more civilised rituals — the high-ceilinged colonial interior is immaculate, and the sense of period is real. Worth visiting for the building alone.