If you’ve been to the gold pounders district and experienced how thin gold can be flatted you’ll will probably have a hard time to believe what you see in this pagoda. The main attraction is the central Buddha statue, which is fitted in the centre of the pagoda. A long carpet clad passage in front of the Buddhas vision, in this passage way you will find hundreds of worshippers kneeling and praying. The pagoda itself is very much like the most pagodas, entrances in the 4 corners of the world, along entrance you find stalls were you can buy art-work, drinks, food etc. The central Buddha statue is made of…

A more than 100 years old temple build from teak wood. It’s located in a peace full garden and you are allowed to go in. Some of monks are eager to talk with the visitors, so allow yourself a chat with them even though not everybody is fluent in English. Several places on the building you’ll find fine figures carved into the wood. An interesting and relaxing place.

In the south end of Mandalay city you find a street where all workshops are dealing with marble cutting. Workshop might seem as a more fancy word than what you experience in the streets. Most of the shops are only a shed with 3 walls and part of a roof, the work is performed mostly in the area just in front of the shed. When you enter the street the first thing you might notice is the clouds of dust. All cutting is performed on the dry stones, a few workers are still working with a hammer and chisel but most work with electric tools like grinders. The grinders fast…

You will most likely meet the habit of putting leaf gold on Buddha statues and you are likely to meet women who try to sell you leaf gold in small packets. So Myanmar uses a lot of the leaf gold and need to produce them. You can see the production of the gold leafs in Mandalay, go to 36th street between 77th and 79th street where you’ll find their workshops. It’s an amazing process where they start with approximately 1 cubic cm of gold and hammer it repeatedly, cut it into peaces and continue with more hammering until there is several hundred leafs approximately 4×4 cm and thinner than paper.…

Sagaing hill is not in Mandalay itself, but approximately 20 km south west of Mandalay city centre. It’s a fine place for a day trip. The easiest way to go is to hire a taxi to take you around in the area.We went to a weavers workshop, they operated both semi-automatic weaves and fully manual weaves. The semi-automatic produces the simplest cloth, with only up to 7 colours while the manual ones uses as many colours as the weave-operator can manage and that’s impressively many. The workshops produces cloth from cotton, pure silk and a mixture of cotton and silk. You find shops that sells the products right beside the…

This iconic bridge apparently is a must see in Mandalay. I will say the bridge looks well at all times of the day, but it is specially amazing when seen in the twilight (either before sun up or after sun set). I’ve heard that it can be hard to get a view of the bridge with monks on during sun set time, because tourists almost have overtaken the bridge – don’t know if it’s true – but I went to the bridge in the morning. As with other things in Myanmar it’s good to be an early riser, because sun rises at around 6:30 AM (November through February), and to…

The pagoda is home the worlds largest book. Mindon Min had Tripitaka carved in stone in the 1860’s to secure that the book would last until 4.000 years after the Buddha. The book is set up in small stupas – one for each page or stone slab – arranged in rows and columns. The sighting is quite impressive.

In the northern part of Mandalay you’ll find Mandalay Hill with it’s pagoda. When you walk up the hill you’ll probably think that it is not one pagoda but a series of pagodas. At the entrance you are meet by to very large lion like sculptures or correctly name chinthes. The chinthes are the guardians of the pagoda (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinthe), like the dragons found in Thai temples. When you enter the area you must hand in your shoes, you might need to pay a few hundred kyats for the service. Then you are ready to climb the stairs up the hill, on the way up you are protected from the sun…

Yan Kin Hill is found at the east end of the 19th street, the easiest way to get there is to hire a taxi or ride a bike. As with Mandalay hill the sight is a series of pagodas and monasteries place on the hill. Yan kin hill is not as crowded as Mandalay hill and is neither with quite as fancy pagodas, but it worth the effort to climb all the stairs. You can leave your shoes at the entrance and climb the stairs towards the peak of the hill, the stairs follows the hill, so in some places they are rather steep. At the top you find an…

Mandalay is the second largest city in Myanmar and is the capital of Mandalay Region. Mandalay has served as the Burmese capital for a short notice from 1857 through 1885. The status as a capital was removed by the British annextation. When you look at the map you’ll find Mandalay approximately in the middle of Myanmar. Mandalay city is practically flat, no hills are found within the city borders, so if you dare it shouldn’t be hard to get around on a bike. To find your way in Mandalay is mostly easy as most of the city’s streets are running north-south or east-west. North of the rail road station streets…