Things to do
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Kuthodaw Pagoda
Seven hundred and twenty nine marble slabs, each in its own whitewashed shrine, carry the Pali canon in a grid around a central stupa, inscribed under King Mindon in the 1860s and often called the largest book in the world. Reading one slab through takes days. Shade is scarce at midday, and star flower trees scent the grounds in season.
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Mahamuni Buddha Temple
Gold leaf applied by male worshippers over generations has thickened the body of a seated bronze Buddha to a lumpy crust several centimetres deep, while the face is polished each dawn in a ceremony that starts before four. Brought from Rakhine in 1784, the image is the most venerated in the country. Women watch the ritual on screens.
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Mandalay Hill
Covered stairways run barefoot from the base, about 1700 steps to a summit terrace of mirrored mosaic and a standing Buddha said to have pointed at the plain below. An escalator and a road serve visitors who skip the walk. Sunset over the palace moat and the river draws a crowd, and the descent in the dark needs a torch.
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Mandalay Palace
Walls and a moat over 2km square enclose a reconstruction of the royal compound burned out in 1945, rebuilt in concrete during the 1990s with a watchtower open for the view. Much of the ground inside remains a military base and is closed. Entry is through the east gate only, and the reconstruction reads as diagram more than building.
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Mingun Pahtodawgyi
An unfinished stupa on the west bank would have stood three times its present height had King Bodawpaya lived to complete it; an earthquake in 1839 split the brick mass with fissures wide enough to walk into. Nearby sit a vast cracked bell and the white terraces of Hsinbyume. Boats run upriver in the morning and return by early afternoon.
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Shwenandaw Monastery
Carved teak panels survive on the one building moved out of the royal palace before the fire, dismantled in 1880 and reassembled beyond the walls as a monastery. Gilding has weathered off the exterior and left the woodwork bare, which is why the carving reads so clearly. It stands near Kuthodaw and takes half an hour.
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U Bein Bridge
Teak posts salvaged from the abandoned palace at Ava carry a footbridge more than a kilometre across Taungthaman Lake at Amarapura, in use since the 1850s by monks, cyclists and fishermen. Water levels fall in the dry season and leave much of it standing over farmland. Sunset boats line up below for silhouettes, and the planks have gaps worth watching.