Whew! What did you all see today? Hired a private guide for the day to see three ancient cities which included many different sights: Maha Myat Muni Pagoda-Mahamuni Temple, Gangayo monastery, Shwenandaw Monastery, Sagaing, Inwa, Mandalay Hill and sunset at U Bein Bridge. Our guide Mr. Tun was a trip to say the least. Nice man, but couldn’t pronounce his English words too well and spoke very loud. Then as the day went on he became a little too friendly and was touching my hair asking if that was my real color. Say what? Then he gives us a special gift: a book he wrote titled: “Stilted Emails Came From Libya”. A book about an email scam by what he thought to be an American women in the US Army. He even has a photo of her in a bikini with the US flag on the cover. Needless to say, the book offered a lot of entertainment at happy hour as Paul started reading it out-load.
At Mahamuni Temple men could place gold flakes on the sitting buddha for good luck. WOMEN NOT ALLOWED however, so the men would have to make the offerings of gold flakes for the women for good luck. Hmmmmm. I could however, see all areas of the large complex which was quite impressive. We saw the monks lunch time parade at the Gangayo monastery with its over one thousand monks. Inwa was the most interesting as we took horse-drawn cart through the ancient capital of Myanmar on the Irrawaddy River. Mandalay Hill was stunning as you could see Pagoda over Pagoda. I was so fortunate to find a monk sitting peacefully overlooking the Pagodas. He graciously let me take his photo, which is one of my favorites. Finally, sunset at U bein Bridge, supposedly the longest teak bridge in the world. It was a day absolutely full of amazing temples and Pagodas. As if we hadn’t seen enough Pagodas and temples, we went next door to the Ein Daw Yar Pagoda where there was a live variety show to celebrate Independence Day (4 Jan). Incredible day I will never forget.
Night market.
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