
The most famous landmark in Yangon, Shwedagon Pagoda is one of the most sacred place for Burmese Buddhists. It is believed that as far as 2,600 years ago there was a pagoda at Shwedagon’s current location; making it one of the longest continuous religious site in the world. Most Burmese Buddhists aspire to visit it at least once in their lifetime.
The whole complex is called Shwedagon, named after the main pagoda; which is said to have strains of the Buddha’s hairs enshrined in it. But there are smaller pagodas, temples and prayer pavilions surrounding the huge golden pyramid. You could easily spend a good 2 hours wandering the complex, marveling at the different pagodas with intricate designs, and watching the monks and nuns meditating and chanting in the temples. The pagoda and its surrounding areas are full of people and activities during the day. Devout locals come to pray, make offerings, mingle with camera touting tourists. Despite the amount of people, it is a quiet and peaceful place.





The best time to go there is in the late afternoon. The tour groups would have been gone by then and there is a kind of hush and solemnity that hangs in the atmosphere. It is hypnotic to see the locals going about their rituals: praying with incense sticks, bathing Buddha statues, and sitting in the small temples or out in the tiled floor, meditating.





As the sun sets, the hot tiles cool and hordes of tourist leave, you can see volunteers carrying brooms line up in front of an instructor. The instructor would direct the line of sweeper to move as one as they sweep the whole complex. Then you’ll see another line of sweepers about 5m behind the first. Then lights come on to light the whole place and neon lights illuminate the buddha statues.



3 Comments
[…] One of the amazing things about visiting the Shwedagon Pagoda is that it’s not only the famous pagoda itself that will take your attention; there are so many little architectural marvels scattered around the site, most of which are gleaming with gold, that I used all of my camera’s memory card whilst visiting here! Many additional smaller temples and halls with statues of Buddha are spread around the complex, too, and I would suggest for a proper inspection of this amazing once-in-a-lifetime place you will need a good 3 hours or so. For further reading and some more incredible photos, check out these blogs from Now and Zenn and Wander2Nowhere. […]
[…] that you don’t see in waiters anywhere in the world. Wherever I went, be it the holy temple of Shwedagon, the breathtaking Bagan, the unforgettable Kalaw-Inle Lake trek, it was the smile of the people […]
[…] which is a term (technically) used to describe the ‘tiered’ style of architecture typical in East Asia, but colloquially used for the Buddhist temples scattering the countryside. And when I say […]