After exploring Mandalay, we headed for Bagan. This ancient city is sometimes described as Myanmar’s Angkor Wat, and was the capital of a great kingdom that rivaled the Khmer Empire to the east. It’s smaller than the Angkor Wat complex, but less commercialized, and is a must-see for anyone visiting Myanmar. But first, we had to get there.

Myanmar developed mostly along river valleys with mountains in between. Transport infrastructure is still relatively undeveloped, with few railway lines and most roads little more than dirt tracks. So we opted for a boat trip down the Irrawaddy River. The journey takes eight hours but is substantially cheaper than flying and more comfortable than going by road.

We bought tickets immediately on arrival at the airport and were relieved to find later that the office there was genuinely offering the best price: USD 45 (and half-price for our 10-year-old). This includes breakfast (it’s an early start), a reasonable lunch and a piece of cake and fruit in the afternoon. Tea and coffee are served free all day, and soft drinks and beer can be purchased.

Disembarking at Yandabo

Our boys were a little bored, so books and perhaps an iPad or other entertainment is recommended. However, my wife and I enjoyed dozing on our bamboo chairs in the cool river breeze. Shortly after lunch, there’s a stop at Yandabo. This otherwise undistinguished village specializes in making cooking pots, and although there are a few souvenir stalls, the locals were happy to invite us into their workshops, without pressure to buy anything.

The villagers of Yandabo invited us in to their workshop

On arrival at Bagan, taxis are waiting, and charge an exorbitant and non-negotiable fixed price to take you anywhere. And the first stop is around the corner, to a checkpoint where you are required to pay a fee in cash just to enter Bagan. At the time this felt like, as my 14-year-old put it, a “shakedown”. However since the temples and stupas are dotted all around the town, there would be no practical way of charging admission to them, and the money is used for the upkeep of the monuments. So just make sure you bring enough money with you.

Hiring e-bikes in Bagan

The best way to get around Bagan is by e-bike. This would not be an option for families with younger children, and the alternative is to hire a taxi or tuktuk for the day. However, the bikes cost a very reasonable USD 3.50 per day and gave us the freedom to explore at our own pace. Our 10-year-old rode on the back of my bike, while our 14-year-old, an experienced cyclist, was delighted to have his own. You have to ask for helmets, which are not routinely offered (or used). The roads are mostly in good condition, although on the way to Dhammayangyi we hit a patch of deep, soft sand and I lost control of my bike. We were traveling slowly enough that I was able to stop safely, but caution is advised on the back roads.

Ananda is possibly Bagan’s most beautiful shrine

After four years in Asia, my sons’ tolerance for temples is worn thin, so we negotiated an itinerary based on seeing four key sites, with the option of stopping at anywhere along the way that looked interesting. Ananda is the most beautiful of the temples; Dhammayangyi the biggest. Shwesandaw was described online as a temple which visitors could climb, but when we visited it was closed off… I’m not aware that any of the monuments can still be climbed, and I don’t think it’s a sustainable future for 700-year-old structures.

Dhammayangyi is the largest of Bagan’s ancient temples

Shwezigon, the last stop on our tour, was the busiest and most active temple, but also perhaps the most disappointing. Apart from the shining gold stupa, stunning against Myanmar’s deep blue sky, it was grubby and crowded. However it was interesting to see shrines to the Nats, the Bamar people’s traditional guardian spirits.

The golden stupa at Shwezigon was the model for Yangon’s famous Shwedagon

In Myanmar, Buddhism is practiced alongside the worship of protector spirits called Nats

We were disappointed also by the Royal Palace, which we paid extra to see, but which turned out to be a modern reconstruction on the site of an ancient ruin. Overall however Bagan was a fabulous experience, rich in extraordinary buildings, and with plenty of restaurants and bars to serve a tourist trade which will surely increase every year. Living in China offers an opportunity to see this extraordinary place before it becomes as crowded as Angkor Wat – don’t miss it.

Photos: Andrew Killeen

Mandalay city has some attractive sights, despite the damage it endured in World War Two. However to see what makes it worth visiting, you need to cross the Irrawaddy River and start exploring the ancient capitals of Upper Burma.

There’s a well-established tourist trail, as can be seen from the fact that you will run into the same people at each location all day long. We were determined to visit Mingun, which cost extra and meant getting up before dawn. However, for only MMK 60,000 (about USD 40) our hotel arranged a driver and car for the whole day, and it was a small price to pay for an unforgettable experience.

Hsinbyume Temple

A 45 minute drive took us to Mingun, and the breathtakingly beautiful Hsinbyume Temple. The temple was built in 1816 in memory of a princess who died in childbirth, and looks like clouds (or more prosaically, a giant meringue).

The Mingun Bell is the second largest ringing bell in the world

The brute size of Mingun’s other main attraction contrasts with the delicate elegance of Hsinbyume. There’s a foretaste of it along the way, in the form of the Mingun Bell. 900 tonnes of bronze, which until 2000 was the heaviest ringing bell in the world. You can climb inside it, and even ring it by whacking it with a lump of wood.

The unfinished, but still awe-inspiring, Mingun Temple

The bell was cast for Mingun Temple, which, had it been finished, would have been the world’s biggest stupa, soaring 150 meters into Myanmar’s deep blue skies. However an astrologer told the king that when it was completed he would die, so the building was abandoned. An earthquake in 1839 caused huge cracks, but a model nearby gives some sense of how gargantuan the finished stupa would have been. (The model dates to the same period as the original temple.)

The model gives some idea of how enormous the Mingun Temple would have been if finished

From Mingun we were taken to Mahagandar Yone, one of the biggest and most important monasteries in the country. Buddhism is thriving in Burma, having been supported by the military government, even though monks were often in the forefront of protests against it. Every day tourists gather to see the monks lining up patiently for their only meal of the day. Food is provided by people from the local community, who take a pride in taking their turn to donate, and when we went the monks were also being given exercise books and pencils. (Buddhist traditions of education mean that Myanmar has always had a high level of literacy, even during periods of economic struggle.)

The monks line up in order of seniority with the youngest last, followed by the novices

The monks leave their shoes in neat rows outside the dining hall

Next stop on the tour was Sagaing, capital of the kingdom for only three years in the 18th century, but from the 14th century seat of royal princes. The area is rich with stunning pagodas, including Umin Thonze with its curved “cave” containing seated Buddhas and paintings with moral lessons.

Umin Thonze

While the heir to the throne was at Sagaing, the kings of various Burmese kingdoms for most of the period between 1365 and 1839 ruled from their capital at Awa, now called Inwa. The city was destroyed by an earthquake, and is now in ruins, but the locals make the most of the sights that remain. Drivers bring everyone to a tributary of the river, where you have to take a boat across to Inwa. It’s not in fact an island, and it’s perfectly possible to drive there, but from the boat you are led to where horses and carts wait to take you round the old city. Hiring a cart is not obligatory, but the locals drive the carts very aggressively past the few tourists who choose to walk.

Horse carts await the tourists arriving at Inwa

It’s not a comfortable ride, bouncing over the dirt roads, and I was annoyed that we were not given any choice as to which sites we saw during the one-hour tour. I balked at paying to enter Bagaya Monastery, which is a modern reconstruction, only to find we had to buy the same ticket to see the unmissable Maha Aungmye Bonzan Monastery. But the kids loved the horses, and the ruins were dramatic and atmospheric.

The ruined temple of Yadana Hsimi

The tour had one last stop: U Bein, said to be the longest wooden footbridge in the world. It’s an alarming place to walk, with no side rail and crowds of tourists stopping to take pictures without much regard for those around. We decided against walking its 1.2km length, and enjoyed the sunset from a lakeside restaurant, enjoying the cheap but fabulous seafood which is everywhere in Myanmar.

U Bein Bridge at sunset

With hindsight, we could have spent two whole days in Mandalay; we didn’t get to see, for example, the famously gold- and jewel-encrusted Mahamuni Buddha. But our next stop was calling, perhaps Myanmar’s most famous tourist draw: Bagan.

Birds fly around Hsinbyume Pagoda

Photos: Andrew Killeen, Karen Killeen

Myanmar is not an obvious destination for a family holiday. The country formerly known as Burma was closed to the world from 1962 to 1988, and it’s probably fair to say for most people, it’s somewhere you only visit after you’ve already been to everywhere else in South-East Asia… which was pretty much the case for us. But that’s a shame, as it’s a beautiful, unspoilt country, with many astonishing sights and friendly people.

We flew into Mandalay, the commercial and cultural center of northern Myanmar. The city was made famous by Rudyard Kipling’s poem “On the road to Mandalay…” which made it a byword for exotic glamor. It’s a relatively modern city though, founded in 1857 by the last king of an independent Burmese kingdom, and it was bombed by both sides during World War Two, leaving the royal palace completely destroyed. The road to Mandalay is mostly a dirt track. However within the dusty, sprawling modern city are the ruins of three ancient capitals, and some breathtaking temples.

With only a day and a half to explore, we headed first to the north-eastern corner of the royal palace. (The palace site occupies over a thousand acres at the heart of Mandalay, and is visible at night as a huge dark square amid the city lights. Some of the buildings have been reconstructed, and there’s a museum on the site too, but we decided to give it a miss.) This is the location of Mandalay Hill, after which the city is named, and the stunning Kuthodaw Pagoda.

Kuthodaw Pagoda

Kuthodaw is known as the “World’s Biggest Book.” The pagoda itself is surrounded by smaller stupas, each housing a marble slab on which is carved a Buddhist sutra. Collectively the slabs contain the whole “Tripitaka”, the canon scriptures of Theravada Buddhism.

One of the 729 stone inscriptions that give Kuthodaw Pagoda the title of “world’s biggest book”

Around the same area are the Kyauktawgyi Buddha Temple, which contains a 900 tonne iron Buddha, and the Shwenandaw Monastery, with its celebrated teak carvings. But we planned to climb Mandalay Hill in time for sunset.

Like most holy sites in Myanmar, you have to take off your shoes and socks when entering Mandalay Hill. I found this heightened my awareness and appreciation of the act of climbing; walking in bare feet makes you more mindful, watching where you tread and feeling the dust, the hot concrete and the cool tiles. The walkway is lined with stalls selling drinks, souvenirs and Buddha statues. For someone from a Western background it seems an odd combination of commercialism and spirituality, but it’s a common sight in the Buddhist world, and the reverence for the shrines is real.

Climbing Mandalay Hill

After a lung-busting climb we arrived at a standing Buddha. “Here we are,” I said, but I was being ludicrously optimistic. it was only the first statue on a long, winding path, dotted with shrines and pagodas. The sun set and darkness had fallen by the time we finally reached the top. The views of the city, amid the fragrance of incense, made the walk worthwhile.

Mandalay Hill offers spectacular views of the city at night- note the dark square of the old palace area

Photos: Andrew Killeen, Karen Killeen

Magical. Magnificent. Marvelous. Mystical. These are but a few words to describe the Golden Land that is Myanmar.

Our journey began in Mandalay, the former capital of Myanmar. This may be the second largest city in the country, but it is unlike any city I’ve ever been. I was pleasantly surprised by the many monks who dabbed the sidewalks, men sporting dress-like longyis, and women made up with thanakha. But the nearby village of Amarapura, away from the hustle and bustle of the city, is where the magic lies.

At the Mahagandayon Monastery, we witnessed hundreds of monks line up to collect their food and watched as they enjoyed their meal. I never thought watching others eat could be so interesting; particularly the little novices dressed in white robes who sat in an area to themselves and ate from bowls that were bigger than their heads. This was an unforgettable experience and definitely should not be missed.

From Mandalay, I went to Bagan, the highlight of any trip to Myanmar. The breathtaking sight of over 2,000 temples and pagodas scattered among 104 square kilometers of land is truly awe-inspiring. We were told that many of the smaller monuments were built by wealthy civilians, and one of the reasons why there are so many temples and pagodas is because they wanted to compete with each other; people wanted to build a bigger, more beautiful monument than their neighbors. I guess competitiveness is human nature and transcends all cultures, boundaries, and eras, but I couldn’t help comparing: here we are, today, competing with each other to see who has the nicer car, bigger house, better job, etc. whereas those citizens of Bagan competed to see whose worship to Buddha is greater. This strong sense of religion and spirituality is still reflected and ever present in the Burmese people today. Though I am not a religious person, I was moved by their devotion.

Next on the itinerary was Inle Lake with its beautiful lake scenery, floating temples and leg-rowing boat men. The local market was another gem that thoroughly enjoyed. Our guide told us that the indigenous people who went to the market to sell their goods treated this to be their “weekend” as it was a way for them to get out of their villages and take a break. Indeed, the vendors all appeared to be quite happy, although I found that was the case with most of the Burmese we came across; always smiling and friendly.

Our last stop was the capital of Yangon. While there really is only one sight, the Shwedagon Pagoda, and it cannot be missed, it truly is a spectacular monument. Myanmar, the Golden Land, really lives up to its name: with countless golden monuments and inhabitants whose hearts are made of gold.

For this tour, please see link:
7 DAYS JEWELS OF MYANMAR – Yangon, Bagan & Inle Lake

Written By: Lynn Ho
Trip organized by Country Holidays.
To learn more about tours and packages, please email beijing@countryholidays.com.cn or call (010) 8587-9263 and log onto: www.countryholidays.com.cn.

This sponsored blog post has been brought to you by Country Holiday.

Photos courtesy of Country Holidays