Personal travelogue Myanmar, Mandalay and its environs, Photos, Pictures, Informations,

The area around Mandalay is well in half day or day trips to explore. We drove by the morning rush hour on the Jetty Pier and then take a private boat, which we shared with a group of young Chinese, and so it was not so expensive. In about 1 hour (10 km) upstream on the Ayeyarwady River we reached Mingun.
Mingun itself is accessible only by waterway and you can see from afar the huge base of Mingun Pagoda. On the banks there were waiting some ox carts for the tourists, but we went by foot to the largest 50 m height bonder cluster of Asia. Originally, this building was planed to a height of 160 m, but it was never completed.

( Click for large image !)

Very close shines the snow-white Set-taw-ya Pagoda where you can find on a marble panel a footprint from Buddha. The seven wavy terraces symbolize the seven mountains in the Indian mythology. Further north is the largest intact bell in the world. It weighs about 90 tons, is 6 meters high, a circumference of 15 m and the base diameter of 5 m. In contrast to 2001 there were not so much tourists here, even though several galleries, restaurants and shops are settled.

In a day, by taxi, by horrible traffic, we drove through beautiful but totally dusty avenues to Sagaing, Inwa and U Bein Bridge. En route we visited the pagoda Kaunghmudaw, which reminded us more like a mosque than a pagoda. The appeal of Sagaing is mainly in the beautiful view of the many scattered hills pagodas. Actually, we saw so many pagodas meanwhile and we thought we had enough, but when we saw this here it was just fascinating again.

Around noon, we went on a small ferry to Inwa. On the other side we continued with a horse cart. The scenery was just like paradise and we felt like in another time. Of course, there were some pagodas, monasteries and other beautiful old buildings.

We wanted to be in Amarapura in the late afternoon, and so was still enough time for the visit in a weaving.

The U-Bein Bridge is one of the highlights for us in Myanmar. We walked back over the 1,200 m-long teak bridge with the roofed picnic areas and enjoyed the unique impressive ambience.