one pagoda that really stood out was the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, the capital of Myanmar. the Shwedagon Pagoda is covered with real gold and precious stones (like ruby's and sapphires) near the top. all this aswell as a huge diamond on the tip. and we mean HUGE. :x there's a lot of pagodas in Yangon itself but thats the main pagoda there. its situated somewhat in the middle of the city - you can see it from where ever you are. the area of the Shwedagon Pagoda is also hugeee! theres smaller pagodas in its compound.
when we were there, we came across a lady who, covered in monk clothing, was sitting alongside the pagoda, facing the sun. she was just sitting there staring. we were wondering what she was staring at and it turns out she was staring straight directly into the sun. ouch, how bad would that hurt? according to our tour guide, that lady was staring at the sun because these monks believed that they could get "powers" by doing so. its weird, but its really interesting watching the monks as they could sit there for hours.
at every corner of the compound, theres these small statues and water feature that represents different months that you were born in. we couldnt really remember if it was zodiacs or birthdays according to the Buddhist beliefs. anyway, people would go to their respective months/statue and pray for various things. they would scoop out a bit of water and pour it over the statue. its sort of like a cleansing ritual.
then we went around the city. the city was clean. it's developing but there was a lot of old buildings still. the men there walk around wearing a type of like "kain pelikat". its really funny, only some of them wear pants. and this is in the city itself! imagine walking around KL or any city in a sarong. hahaha. : p
next we went to the Reclining Buddha. the name says it all, the Buddha was actually reclining. it was lying down on its side. and it was big aswell! what is it with these Burmese and big things? haha. but this reclining Buddha was really cool to see. at the bottom of the feet of the reclining Buddha, there was writings of the Buddhist beliefs. the reclining Buddha was the biggest reclining Buddha in Myanmar. it was built with fundings from all over the world. there's plaques of people who donated money to help build the Buddha all over the place. like other holy place or praying place, we had to take our shoes off to enter the place.
we went to eat at an Indian restaurant for lunch. it's not really easy to find Halal food around Yangon. its easy if you have a tour guide like we did. because we specified for Halal food. there's a lot of Indian influence in Burma as it goes back to the roots - most of the Burmese ancestors were migrants from India. and we went for Chinese for dinner. the food was okay. no complains there.
we were in Yangon for only a night, which was the first night in Myanmar. but we later came back for another night at the end of the journey for our flight back to KL.
next stop: Bagan : )
