Personal travelogue Myanmar, Mandalay, Photos, Pictures, Informations,

Mandalay is the second largest city of Myanmar with over 1 million inhabitants. This time we arrived Mandalay not in an arduous, but memorable 18-hour ride with the old British Rail built in 1948 from Yangon, but easily and comfortable by plane.
The city is the main cultural and especially religious centre of the country. There is the Buddhist University and in and around the city are a lot of meditation centres and monasteries, supposedly there are more than 1500! Here live some of 60% of all monks, mostly in old and beautiful teak monasteries.

( Click for large image !)

With an old taxi, there are almost no other, and its driver, who was also our guide, we went on tour during our four-day stay here.
First, of course, we visited the most sacred Buddha statue of the country, the Mahamuni Buddha in the same named monastery. The Buddha statue here is at some places 40 cm thick covered with beaten gold, so that the original contours is practically not to find. Unfortunately for woman it is forbidden to visit the inner area of the Pagoda and touch the Buddha statue.

The city is also the centre of Burma craftsmanship. The orders for the bronze casting, stone masons, wood carvers, and Jade polisher mostly come from religiously motivated donors and have nothing to do with souvenirs. In this time we were fascinated again from the gold leaf beaters and stone cutters, they working under really beastly conditions.

The area of Kutho-daw pagoda. is also called "the biggest book of the World”. In each of the 729 small pagodas there are individual marble panels on which are carved the tenets of the Buddhist religion (Tipitaka)

At sunset, we went by foot in round half and a hour over 934 stairs up to the Mandalay Hill. From here you have a great view of the old city walls, the palace complex and the surrounding monasteries. You can also take a taxi or the elevator to coming up, but we preferred to go by foot.

On our first visit in 2001 we could not visit the Royal Palace in the old city walls. This time there was no problem to visit the great palace grounds with its wooden buildings and the watchtower.

For us, the visit was rather disappointing, because we had expected much more from a royal palace.

Mandalay is also a commercial - and trans-shipment-centre for all kinds of goods to China. Mainly these are transported by waterways. According to this it is very busy at the riverbanks and supply lines. But you can see here still the traditional life on the river, too.