03-04.12-2014 Myanmar, Yangon, days 15 and 16

Hello friends,

The trip to Pagu (ex. Pegu ort Pagan) start after breakfast at 8am from hotel. I had booked a guide with private car and driver and he was 10 to eight at hotel. Very punctual, the quality I respect a lot in Myanmar.

"Highway" passed small, busy villages

Many different transportations on the way to Pagu

Small video of the action from my car window:

Huge logs transported from up country to Yangon

On the way we stopped at the local restaurant for small break. This was Thai/Myanmar food restaurant.

Restaurant by the road to Pagu

This transportation had at least 37 people,
at Finland you cant fit it to bus ;)

The distance from Yangon to Pagu is about  about 150Km and took us 2 hours, 30 minutes but the traffic was pretty good all the way. I can imagine it could take easily double if you leave at wrong time. First we went to to famous monastery where the monks will have their lunch (and only meal for the day). Short story of Myanmar monks life is at 5am leave monastery for "begging" food. Real monks do not beg but get their breakfast/lunch donated by the real buddhist families who share their meals.
After that they have morning lessons and 11am the lunch break. Afternoon 2pm are  some more teachings. They retire early for meditation practices and sleep. There are lot of rules for monks. Like they cant touch money, cant make food (all must be donated daily), cant kill anything (and I mean anything, even mosquitos). If I remember right Monks have over 250 rules and Nuns 450+.

Meditation is the important part of buddhism and all buddhist much practice it daily.

Entrance corridor to inner monastery

Bronze bell inside monastery

Eating hall for the monks

Volunteers and novice monks preparing meal for the monks

one of the many rice pot

Volunteers donating drinks, presents and food for monks

Monks arrive in endless queue to get their daily meal

Queue is long

Very long

After observing the monks getting their food, we left  for the next destination, biggest pagoda in Myanmar (even bigger than Yangon Swedagon Pagoda). On the way I took some photos of the smaller streets of Pagu.

Busy streets of Pagu at noon

Everything is sold here at streets

Local store

Pagu firestation

It was very hard to fit car to these streets

Onions and other farm products available

Few traffic lights in main road

Bamboo hat shop

After very exiting car drive through the Pagu roads, we arrived to Shwemawdaw Paya, local Pagoda that is also called as  Golden God Temple. It is the highest Pagoda in country, 375 feet in height or 114.30m. This Pagoda was build around 10 century but was destroyed several times with earthquake. Some of the old parts are saved on site as historical relics of the original pagoda.

Entrance to the Shwemawdaw Paya, two lions guarding

Entrance pavement to Pagoda

As usual, camera costs extra

Central Pagoda

Big bell inside at the Pagoda

One of the medium bells inside

Proof; "I was there" (or photo-shopped)

 There are 4 entrances to Pagoda, each having the praying spot for worshippers

Right way to bow

One of the 4 side praying area

Outside are the statues for the different day born people

Hall with Buddhist flags and buddha image 

One of the smaller temples
 aside of Pagoda

Buddha image with historical paintings

Painting of the Pagoda after last earthquake

Part of the old temple before earthquake

Another saved part of the old Pagoda

Local candle

Three big buddha statues

Old writing in the big bell

Horoscope symbols in the big bell

Shwemawdaw Paya Pagoda in the sun

Buddha images with different hand signs

Aside of the big Pagoda

Mon style female bird on top of male bird

 After Pagoda we drive to near by Kambawzathardi Golden palace that is newly built on top of the old palace grounds as it was lost and underground when I was recently discovered.

Kambawzathardi Golden palace 

Grand palace

Hallway to Kings throne room

Old teak pillars found from underground

Part of the pillars saved 

Other hall with old pillars

A table about the palace

Three Historical kings of Myanmar

King Anawratha
1044-1077 AD

King Bayint Naung
1551-1581 AD

King Alaungmintaya
1752-1760 AD

The throne for Kings audiences

Items used by Kings

Table exlpaining the history of Palace

Table of the history of the temple

Some historical periods and building architectures

Map of Palace area

Model of the Kings carriage

Canoe carved from big tree

Bee throne hall

The Bee Throne Hall

After Palace, we drove to old, huge reclining buddha image at the Shwethalyaung Buddha temple. A lot of local wood statues and other souvenirs are sold at  all Pagoda entrances.

Statues and clothes sold at Pagoda entrance

Some of the statues are nicely done

There are loads of them, and then more...

I was not the only foreigner here

Wood carvings

Stautes of everything you can image

Measurements of the
 reclining buddha

Shwethalyaung Reclining Buddha Image

The feet were also very big

Protector statue with Lion and
elephant under

Outside nearby was also another reclining
statue build recently

After reclining buddha, we went to "Four faces buddha" temple that was donated and  build by four rich sisters.

Four sided buddha temple

Lonely monk meditating at temple in midday heat

After all these old buddhist worship places, we headed back to Yangoon. We had a short lunch at local chinese-burmese-thai restaurant, and food was tasty, as allways.

On the way we stopped a nicely built resort by the highway and I took a hundreds of pictures of wood carvings, all big or very big sizes. Pagu is well known for wood artistry and this place has manufactured them by thousands.

Building full of wooden statues

wood statues

wooden statue

Wood carvings

Inside the wood carvings building

Pocket crab made of wood

Large dragon

Table and chairs

You can hire a swan boat for lake trip

This was very interesting place to see all the wood works and I would be happy to see few of them around the house or garden. Next stop we did was the second world war monument cemetery, having
thousands of tombstones of the  fallen soldiers from all over the world. As it was the hottest time of the day, I just shortly took some pictures and left.

Monument and tombstones all around it

Memory stone

Japanese sushi restaurant dinner with tourist guide

Sule pagoda by night from car window

 One warning for the end. I learned the hard way what could happen with high temperature weather (34+) and car air-con. Since I non-stop jumped out from cold car (20 degrees) and hot sun, next morning I started feeling sniffles and soar throat. So I spent Thursday at hotel feeling pretty sick and writing this blog. If I feel better at Friday, I try to get out and do something, otherwise we have  friends wife's birthday party at Saturday evening.

I will add some more videos to end of this one once they can be loaded and internet works properly.

Good health all,

Pasi