Myanmar-June2019 visit-Mandalay to Monywa

The second day starts with an early breakfast, and then Htwe-Htwe with his chartered MPV picked us up early morning, before 8am, and we moved to Mandalay airport to pick up Htwe-Hwte and Aida-San, and then we start moving towards Monywa, stopping by a few places along the way.

Firstly, near Mandalay Airport Highway, there are many Mango sellers, which is in the season, and the species is called one diamond (Sein Ta Lone), which is very sweet type, which is selling at 4,500 for 5 mango fruits (but I prefer other species which is more sourish). Htwe Htwe bought some and then we move to towards Monywa.

Sein Ta Lone

The first stop we had was at  Kaunghmudaw Pagoda, in Sagaing area. It was modeled against Sri Lankan Pagoda and it is one of the important pilgrimage location for local Buddhists. We stayed for a while, offer prayers and moved towards Monywa. 

 And along the way, you see many shops selling Thanaka, a gound bark that you apply on the face, to protect the skin from sunlight, heat, and believe to have anti UV property (scientifically not proven as yet).

This is kind of grinding mortar or slate, made of stone used for grinding the Thanaka log, and sprayed with water, to have the Thanaka mud, so that you may apply on the face. I tried this on the trip to Monywa, quite nice, and quite similar to our Bedak Sejuk.

The Thanaka

The Jasmine Season, June offered during the summer month, and it is seasonal, and smells very good.

We stopped by in the middle of of the way to Monywa, on the shaded roadside to have our brunch, local noodles that Htwe-Htwe asked the driver to buy for us all, and he carried them in tiffins, from Mandaly. Noodles was quite food and taste delicious.

Everyone smiled for the camera before our meal.

As soon as we finished with our meals, we continued with our journey and the next stop was at Thanboddhay Pagoda, which the compound has a combined Buddha statues of more than 500,000. Here you need to pay an entrance fees to enter, I think it is about Kyat 3000/pax.

You can see from pictures there are many small Buddha statues stacked systematically, layer by later on the wall of the temple itself.

And then the journey continues, and we next arrived to the another famous site, Maha Bodhi Ta Htaung (Burmese: မဟာဗောဓိတထောင်, lit. 'a thousand great Bo trees') is a famous Buddhist region and monastery located in Monywa Township, Sagaing Region, Myanmar (Burma). It is famous for the Giant Standing Buddha statue, the third tallest in the world, and for the Great Atitudes of U Narãda, who built the monastery. \

A new status, a sitting Buddha, believe to be the world's largest is in the final construction stage and expected to be ready soon.

And this place is also famous for the thousand Buddha statues under the Bodhi trees...and each statue is sponsored, local and foreigners. You can find their names written on cement wall of each Buddha statue.

 Then after this, we went for our Lunch which as basically local Burmese food, and they have many dishes served.

And after lunch, we managed to stop by a place nearby where they make Lacquerware but we didn't buy anything here as we did not find anything we like here.

Lacquerware studio

Once finished for the day, we then went back to Monywa city, to check in at the hotel, which is next to the lake.

Sunset at the lake next to the hotel and dinner was nearby too, a kind of local barbecue dinner, with local Myanmar beer. Next, we went for s short trip to see their night market, before going back to the hotel for a good rest. The story continues -under Monywa-part 2

Choong

Written on 14 July 2019