Myanmar/Burma: On the Road in Mandalay

Our Burma adventure started off with 1 night in Rangoon. We visited the huge and amazing Shwedagon Pagoda (temples are called pagodas in Burma), a revered and holy site for Buddhists. The massive complex consists of numerous missile-like structures and hundreds, if not thousands, of Buddha statues.


Everything was all lit-up with twinkling multi-colored miniature lights and it looked like a mix between a monstrous, sacred Cathedral, Disneyland, and the Las Vegas strip.

It so happened that the Pagoda was celebrating its 2600 year anniversary and this ceremony brought hordes of monks, worshippers, and devotees to Shwedagon to pray and circumambulate around the large gold stupa that is the central dome within the complex.

There were very few tourists, and we were a big attraction to the locals, who wanted to engage us in conversation - asking where we were from, how many days would we be in Burma, and other probing questions. The people here are very intelligent, as the literacy rate is very high, and there are any people who speak English. It didn’t take long before we were smitten with the kindness of the people in this so-called “land of smiles.”

We departed Rangoon the following morning and spent the next 4 days in Mandalay, a large, bustling, loud Asian city.

We stayed at a lovely hotel in the center of the city which was set back from the road, affording us a peaceful sanctuary with a shaded pool/oasis area around which we had many of our lunches, happy hour cocktails, and cold Myanmar beers. Our friend Bob Ford is, and will be, traveling with us for 9 of our 19 Burma days, and thus far we’ve been sharing many laughs and experiences with him.

We visited over ten other pagodas and monasteries in town and around the city, including a drive to the top of Mandalay Hill for some hazy views and to take in many of the amazing structures built hundreds of years ago. Everywhere we look and in all directions there are temples, stupas, and pagoda complexes.

 

One of our favorites was the most important pagoda in the area, where only men are allowed to place a gold leaf on the Buddha, and where they wash the giant golden holy image at 4 am each morning. At all of these pagodas we noticed large temple bells which everyone enjoyed gonging, including us.

 

On another adventure we took a long day trip with an excellent driver named “Moe” to 3 ancient cities. In Amarapura we were able to visit a famous monastery, where we saw thousands of monks lining up for their silent lunch.

 

At Sagaing Hill, we visited several of the hundreds of pagodas, each beautiful and amazing in their own way. Our favorite stop of the day was in the ancient city of Inwa. Here we took a small wooden boat across a river to an isolated island, then traveled by pony cart to some very ancient pagodas which reminded us of the Cambodian Ankor Wat region.

 

There was also fascinating village life at Inwa, as well as some very persistent local salespeople, including a girl on bike who followed along behind attempting to sell us little bells while we moved along on our horse cart. Later in the day, at sunset, we walked along U Bein’s Bridge, said to be the largest and longest teak bridge in the world.

Our explorations in the Mandalay area ended with a trip in a very basic ferry boat on the Irrawaddy River to the village of Mingun, an area with yet more pagodas, interesting local life, many artists selling their wares, and the largest (uncracked) bell in the world – which of course we rung – using a large wooden mallet specifically designed for this purpose.