Home » Burma (Myanmar) » Land of the Golden Temples

After Cambodia we traveled to Myanmar via Bangkok. Myanmar is an isolated country, ranking 154th on the list of countries surveyed in the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom 2005, beating only North Korea. Political freedoms are certainly not much better either.

Land of the Golden Temples

Odv
2006-04-15 18:35:02

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golden zedis in Yangon are Sule Pagoda, spot in the center of town and Botataung Pagoda, unique because the stupa is hollow. Inside each stupa is said to be a relic of some sort, in Botataung this is a hair of the Buddha. The zedi was destroyed during WWII, the relic was found amongst the rubble.
Mandalay

Mahamuni Paya in Mandalay has a Buddha statue covered in gold leaves, so thick that the original form is barely visible, every day the faithful (and the not so faithful, like me) continue to stick more leaves of gold on the statue. Strangely women (or "ladies" as the sign read) were not allowed to approach the Buddha. There were an annoying number of beggars at this temple.

Kuthodaw Pagoda (or "the world's largest book"), also in Mandalay, has 729 marble slabs with the entire Tripitaka inscribed on them. Each slab is housed in its own little stupa. If you learn to read Burmese numerals you can, to the amazement of the monks, find the last page, page number 729.

A short and pleasant boat trip up the Ayeyarwady river from Mandalay, lies Mingun, which would have been the site of the world's largest zedi (stupa), had it been completed. The zedi was planned to be 150 meters tall, but only the base was built. Mingun also claims to have the largest hanging uncracked bell in the world, weighing 90 tonnes. You can get under the bell and ask for someone to "ring" it for you.

In Amarapura, just south of Mandalay, one can find U Bein's bridge, a 1.2 kilometer long teakwood bridge that snakes across a lake.

What made our visit to Mandalay an even more exciting experience was that we met a group of English students on Mandalay Hill. They invited us to their class so that they could practice their English with us. It was a fun experience.

An entirely different experience was a visit to a Moustache Brothers show. Par Par Lay, the group's leader spent 7 years in jail for making a joke about the government. ...