Maha Myat Muni Pagoda

I planned to spend two whole days exploring Mandalay; the first day on foot visiting the sights within the city, and the second day via car visiting sights outside the city.

For my day on foot, I planned a route that would first take me southwest of my hotel to see the Maha Myat Muni Pagoda and the Shwe In Bin Monastery, and then northeast of my hotel to see the sights clustered around the palace. The map my hotel provided me did not have a scale, but I thought to myself that it shouldn't take that long to walk one block west and 20 blocks south to my first planned stop, correct? Not quite... I didn't factor in the poor sidewalk conditions and difficulty in crossing roads. It took me over an hour to get there! Along the way, I saw a cluster of jewelry and gem businesses, another cluster of motor parts businesses, and finally a cluster of religious artifact stalls at and near my destination.

Maha Myat Muni Pagoda is renowned for its sitting Buddha which devotees continually cover with gold leaf. The pagoda itself wasn't immediately obvious from street level. To get to it, you have to go through a row of shops selling religious items. The Buddha was in a small, covered hall and there were lots of devotees sitting in front of it. Due to the positioning of the entrances to the Buddha, you could only see his lower half and the devotees filing past as they tacked gold leaf onto him. The gold leaf must be six inches deep by this point! It looks as if only men could place gold leaf on the statue.

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