Schwedagon Pagoda

Arriving in Yangon in the middle of the day, it’s HOT.  We’ve chosen a downtown hotel so we will be relatively near the main sights, but the only sight we want to see right now is the pool. After a couple of hours more relaxing we are ready to tackle the Schwedagon Pagoda, the most famous and sacred in Burma.

There has been a shrine on this site enclosing 8 strands of Buddha’s hair and other relics for over 2500 years.  The pagoda has been rebuilt – and grown in size – over the centuries and now stands at over 300ft. In its latest guise this really is bling overload.   Apart from the main stupa, there are several other pagodas here and many famous Buddha images – there is almost too much to see. 

We arrive about an hour before sunset, in time to see the nightly ceremony of people sweeping the marble floors surrounding the main stupa, which is more of a meritorious deed than a real act of cleaning.  Meritorious deeds abound. The main stupa has seven corners containing a shrine for a different day of the week.  You are meant to find out the day you were born on and tend to the Buddha representing that day.  These Buddhas are decorated with flowers and white umbrellas and washed in scented water by crowds of devotees.

This place is vast and crowded with locals and tourists, so when I lose sight of Robin for a full 10 minutes, I start to get a bit concerned.  It’s getting dark and I can’t remember which entrance we came in (our shoes, of course, are at the bottom), and on past experience, Robin will be totally unaware that I’m at all worried and head back to the hotel without me. Luckily, on my second circuit, I find him and stick close while we take a final look at this extraordinary expanse of gold and jewelled devotion.