Mandalay
Built in 2011, this remarkable 75ft-tall seated Buddha, with either most of his ribs or a 14-pack showing, is a 'meditation image' that falls stylistically somewhere between manga cartoon and Cubism. This Buddha gets marks for being a fairly unique representation amid Mandalay's thousands of almost identical representations of the Enlightened One.
The small complex has several other interesting images, including a good-sized sleeping Buddha.
2.8 MILES
To get a sense of Mandalay’s pancake-flat sprawl, climb the 760ft hill that breaks it. The walk up covered stairways on the hill's southern slope is a…
12.8 MILES
This lovely 1834 teak monastery is Inwa’s most memorable individual attraction. It's supported on 267 teak posts, the largest 60ft high and 9ft in…
2.77 MILES
Every day, thousands of colourfully dressed faithful venerate Mahamuni's 13ft-tall seated buddha, a nationally celebrated image that’s popularly believed…
23 MILES
Founded in 1915 and carved out by Turkish prisoners captured by the British during WWI, this lovingly maintained 435-acre botanical garden features more…
3.81 MILES
Staring distantly towards Mandalay Palace, temple-topped Yankin Hill is worth climbing for views of greater Mandalay's rice-field setting and of the Shan…
6.86 MILES
The world’s longest teak footbridge gently curves 1300yd across shallow Taungthaman Lake, creating one of Myanmar’s most photographed sites. In dry season…
3.1 MILES
A meditative departure from the usual Burmese 'douse-it-all-in-gold-and-pastels' aesthetic, this gorgeously carved teak monastery is beloved by tourists…
9.27 MILES
This ‘early offering shrine’ is the most important of the temples on Sagaing Hill’s southern crown and the first you’ll come to on climbing the One Lion…
1 MILES
Viewable only from the outside, a 230ft-wide moat and well over 4 miles of crenellated 26ft-high walls form a vast square around the site of the former…
1.63 MILES
The 1990s reconstruction of Mandalay's royal palace features more than 40 timber buildings constructed to resemble the 1850s originals. Climb the curious…
1.68 MILES
This fine teak monastery-temple is noted for its carvings, particularly the interior gilded scenes from the Jataka (past-life stories of the Buddha). The…
1.7 MILES
Within the palace complex, this small, neglected museum holds poorly displayed relics gleaned from the old Burmese royal family. The most intriguing…
1.75 MILES
This unusually shaped temple is a series of diminishing stupa-dotted terraces over an arched base decorated with peacock motifs. When built in 1857, it…
1.83 MILES
Those 1-sq-in gold-leaf sheets that worshippers piously place on sacred buddha images are laboriously hand-pounded in dozens of specialist workshops in…
1.94 MILES
At this shrine, you'll find 1774 ensconced marble slabs inscribed with commentaries on the Tripitika (Buddhist scriptures). Along with the stone slabs at…
1.96 MILES
This mosque is not a tourist attraction per se, but it has been the site of tense confrontation when anti-Muslim anger has been stoked in the past. The…