The
moment we landed in Yangon, Myanmar, we immediately went to our first Pagoda and did a tour
straightaway. This was the Shwedagon Pagoda. THe whole complex has some smaller temples on the sides and a huge stuppa in the center. (I shall
explain what the difference is between pagodas, temples and stuppas later) The
details are stunning! All the gold, and carving and jewels. Yes there are
actually jewels on top of the highest point of the structure! Of course I
couldn't take a photo because, well I can't very well just fly up there right?
But anyway, apparently there is a seventy-plus carat diamond at the very top of
the spire.
 |
| Yangon : Shwedagon Pagon - the stuppa with a ginormous diamond at the
very tip of the top |
 |
| Yangon: Shwedagon Pagoda - gorgeous details |
 |
| Yangon : Shwedagon Pagoda- one of the side temple's ceilings. So
beautiful and detailed! |
 |
| Yangon : Shwedagon Pagoda - this is what the top looks like with that
huge diamond (just a photo of a photo) |
Day 2 Bagan
 |
Some
sort of wood that when they grind up and make into paste, can work as sunblock
or mosquito repellant!
|
 |
| Nyaung Oo local market in Bagan |
 |
| Bagan: Shwezigon Pagoda |
Our
second day in Myanmar was one of the most interesting and one of the highlights
of the trip. If you google "Bagan" then you will know what I mean!
Better yet, just read on the rest of this post so you can see! Bagan is
known for the pagoda forest. You climb up a certain high point in the
city and you get a chance to see thousands of pagodas scattered all over the
land. It's pretty amazing. Upon arrival at the Bagan airport, we were already
made to pay an entrance fee. My first reaction was : "Wait I thought that we paid
entrance once we get to the archaeological site?" Guess what, it turns the WHOLE of
Bagan was one big archaeological site! Once we got on the road we finally got
to see why.
 |
| Bagan: Pagodas Scattered at the side of the road. |
Driving
down the dusty orangey-brown road, my sister and I wished we had about ten
pairs of eyes and 10 different cameras. I really thought at first that we could
only see the forest once we went up that high point, but guess what? The pagodas
were everywhere! We were literally IN the Pagoda forest! We were scrambling
around the van, looking from left to right and just clicking our cameras hoping
to capture whatever we could while in a moving vehicle. There were temples
everywhere we looked!
 |
| Bagan: Pagodas Scattered at the side of the road. |
 |
| Bagan: Pagodas Scattered at the side of the road. |
It
was a pretty awesome and surreal sight, our photos didn't quite capture the
moment and all the sights we saw. We finally begged our tour guide to stop the
van at the side of the road so that we could go into the grassy land and take
close-ups of the buildings. Everything was just so wonderful. It was great
being immersed in all that history and culture. This was really what I imagined
Myanmar to look like!
 |
| Bagan: Pagodas Scattered at the side of the road. |
 |
| Bagan : I have to agree with my sister when she says that there's
something about labeling somewhere "kingdom of.." that gives us
shivers |
Other
sites we visited in Bagan was the local market, pictured above, the Shwezigon
Pagoda, another magnificent building complex with golden spires, gorgeous
detailing and hundreds of Buddha statues. Plus, before we got to see the Pagoda
forest from above, we visited a lacquer ware factory. This is one of Myanmar's
specialty products.
 |
| Bagan: A gold owl at the lacquer ware factory. |
 |
| Bagan : Pagodas Scattered at the side of the road. (still not over this
sight, I tell you) |
Finally,
finally. We got to the best part of the day. We get to survey the Pagoda
Kingdom from high up at sunset!
 |
| Bagan: First we had to climb up these really steep stairs and get to the
third floor |
 |
| Bagan: At the top we see the pagoda forest |
 |
| Bagan: gorgeous sunset photo |
 |
| Bagan: gorgeous sunset photo |
 |
| Bagan: gorgeous sunset photo |
It
was an incredible sight and feeling to be up there! Never mind I had to go
barefoot in dirt roads and cement! It was all worth it.
 |
| Bagan: view of the Irawaddy River from our hotel |
 |
| Bagan : Night view of Irawaddy River from our hotel |
There were just so many picturesque views! Even the views
from our hotel was gorgeous, it was right on the banks of the Irawaddy River,
one of the most important rivers in the country.
The last two days of our stay in Myanmar
were spent travelling back to Yangon, touring the capital and visiting a whole lot of other temples! I won't be putting a photo of every single temple
that we went to because to tell you the truth there were just too many of them!
I also won't be putting photos of ALL the places we went to, I just wanted to
highlight some memorable ones:
 |
| Yangon: Kalaywa Tawya Monastery, where we saw more than a thousand young
monks take their meal. It was really cool. I hope they didn't get weird-ed out at the fact that we were staring and observing them while they eat! |
 |
| Yangon: Chaukhtathgyi Pagoda, home to the fourth largest colossal
reclining image in Myanmar. I've seen reclining buddhas before but what struck
me was the foot! So many prints and symbols! |
I thought I had enough of the pagodas and temples and I was seriously thinking of not going in this last one anymore. Good thing I did because, I think it had the most amazing interiors ever! And when I say amazing interiors, I don't mean the decor nor the furniture or whatever was inside. I meant the whole set-up and structure. It was a like a labyrinth/maze!
 |
Yangon :
Temple of the Sacred Hair Relic
|
This
was the temple of the Sacred Hair Relic. Once you get in,you see a shrine.
Everything and I mean everything is in gold color. The walls, the
ceilings..everything! Once you enter you see that both on your left and right is a passageway that
leads to God knows where. My sister and I decided to just pick one and go. And
so we did. We walked and walked and it was a whole bunch of gold passageways that went on
and on without end! It was really amazing. We finally decided to stop at one
passage to take photos and while we were at it, we hear someone
"psssst-ing" at us. When we turned around we saw that it was a kinda
creepy but very kindly monk who called us over and placed some sort of
bracelets in our wrists. (my sister did some research, they were apparently for
good luck)
 |
Yangon:
Temple of the Sacred Hair Relic. Walls and ceiling were all covered in these
intricate carvings and gold color
|
 |
Yangon:
Temple of the Sacred Hair Relic.Getting lost in the gold passageways that
seem to lead to nowhere
|
Anyway
after our encounter, we decided to walk the rest of the passageways and we
somehow ended up again in the entrance where the shrine was So the whole thing
was just one big giant circle, but I was still amazed and still had fun. This
is my favorite temple ever!
 |
Yangon
: A lighted up pagoda peeking out from the shadows, random view from our hotel
|
So
there you have it. Four days in Myanmar/Burma. I admit that I didn't do much
research before I came but it was okay because everyday was like a pleasant
surprise! It's nice to be surprised by the unexpected. There are still lots of culture
and tradition and many points of interest to visit. The photos I placed in this
post are probably only less than one fourth of the sights to see in the
country. Myanmar is definitely a must on everyone's bucket list!
By the way we
traveled on a package tour so our hotels and some meals and of course all our
sightseeing tours were included already. Not sure what advice I can give out
there to those traveling on their own, but if you do have any questions about
my trip feel free to email me at celyn_lifeisashoe@yahoo.com or leave a comment
below! I realized I haven't tackled a lot of things like their food, the
lodgings and etc...For food my sister just downloaded a list of must eat restos
and we tried one or two of them out so feel free to email me if you want to see
the list!
Hope you enjoyed
this little travel diary and I hope that you will put Myanmar in your bucket
list and get to visit it one day!
All photos in
this post are personal photos of nofiltertravel.blogspot.com. If you want
to use them or borrow them in any way, please contact me first! My email add:
nofiltertravel@gmail.com. If you can't be bothered to send me an email and
still want to use my photos, then please do credit them and link back to this
blog. Thanks!
***If you're
still reading this, I did promise that I was going to give the differences
between Pagodas, Temples and Stuppas. The guides all kept referring to these
words so i finally asked ours and it turns out, Pagoda is the general term for
all these places of worship and prayer. And under pagodas fall the temples and
the Stuppas. A temple is a structure that's hollow inside and people can go in
to do their prayers and worship. A stuppa meanwhile is all solid structure and
people can’t go inside. That's all! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment