My Myanmar Trip - Day 3

Mandalay

We took the morning flight again from Nyaung U airport in Bagan to
Mandalay. It is the second largest city in Myanmar and the last royal
capital lying towards the north of Yangon.

With a different guide at Mandalay, we were promptly taken
immediately towards the city centre as it took about 1 hour from the
airport to the city.  It may be quite a distance for us but on the way
we were rewarded by pleasant rural scenery with fruits orchard and
farms. The most pleasant part was that we came upon a big sunflower
farm and we were practically delirious seeing sunflowers as big as our
face. Our guide was quite amused at us and was wondering what's  in

the sunflowers that make us so excited.

Mahagandayon Monastery

Situated in Amarapura, this monastery houses about a thousand monks
who live and study together. Founded by The Venerable Janakabivamsa
who wrote and published many Buddhist scriptures for both monks and
lay people. The monastery here relies on donations to feed the monks
on a daily basis. Feeding them is  mind boggling to us as we went
through their kitchen and all cooking utensils are giant-sized. There was
a corporate sponsor the day we visited and it really was amazing seeing
hundreds of monks in maroon robes lining up to take their only meal of
the day. In the dining room there was total silence as they eat and what
they could not finish some of them gave them to the poor waiting in the

compound of the monastery.

U Bein Wooden Bridge

Built in 1782 of teak wood, this bridge spanning across the
Taungthaman Lake, is about 1.2km long. Still intact after
so many years, this bridge is still important to the local
people who communicates from a village at the end of the
bridge to the other side. We walked across the bridge to
the village to visit a pagoda there and came back by boat
rowed by a man to give our legs a rest. Vendors along
the bridge sell souvenirs and sometimes they could be
quite persistent.

Taking off our shoes was what we had to do everyday as

our itinerary covered temples and pagodas.

The Mahamuni Temple

With a height of 3.82m, The Mahamuni image has lost its contours

with the frequent application of gold leaves by male devotees only.

So the task of applying gold leaves to the image was done by our

2 male members. Crowned and bejewelled with diamonds, rubies

and sapphires, the image is under constant guard.

Golden Palace Monastery

Built of teak wood, the Golden Palace Monastery is a fine 

example of Burmese architecture with Buddhist myths

adorning the walls and roof of the palace. The woodcarvers

expertise are shown all over the palace with fine carvings

and intricate patterns.

                         .

The interior of the monastery

The Kuthodaw Pagoda

Our guide was enticing us all day about seeing the world's largest
book and we were both curious and eager to see it.  Is it really
that big and how would you turn the pages?
But it turned out to be slabs of Buddhist scriptures inscribed on
marble slabs. There were 729 slabs housed in 729 shrines located
on one side of the compound of the pagoda.

The main entrance to the Kuthodaw Pagoda.  

         

The shrines each containing a slab of Buddhist scripture.

After a day of nearly over dosing on temples and pagodas, we
climbed up to the last temple of the day to have a panoramic
view of the city and to catch the sunset.
Retiring to our hotel, the Mya Mandalar , we found that it was
way below  the standard of Ayer River View Hotel the day
before.  But good or bad we were just too tired to bother as
we have a long day ahead the next day and needed to have a
good sleep to continue our trip.

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