'It's hot'
'It's fu**in hot!'
'Might be too hot!'
We grabbed a taxi (our driver was very smiley!) and drove (very speedily) to our hotel! The hotel was very posh.....maybe a bit too posh for us lol but the inside did remind me of the hotel from 'The Shining'!
If you only see one stupa on your whole trip through SE Asia,
make sure it's the glorious gilded spire of Shwedagon Paya!
It is the defining image of Yangon and a symbol of Burmese
identity for 2500 years.
Every good Buddhist in Myanmar tries to make at least one pilgrimage here in their lifetime and I can see why the place is absolutely breathtaking (not just because it's so hot there that my flip-flops start to melt!). The compound includes the main Zedi and 82 other buildings. The paya ('holy one' a religious monument) is said to be built upon a hill where Buddha relics have been enshrined, including eight hairs of the Buddha.
In the 15th century one of the Queens gilded the paya with her own weight in gold leaf.Then her son-in-law offered four times his own weight and that of his wife's. Since then the zedi has grown to 98m tall and has accumulated more than 53 metric tonnes of gold leaf, more than 5000 diamonds and 2000 other stones. I think you can imagine how amazing that looks!
When you enter the compound you have to remove your shoes...this might seem all lovely and respectful which usually I am all for but when its 40o and your walking barefoot its not fun...it's like slowly cooking your feet. However, this did cause some laughs as even the locals could be seen running across the compound shouting 'ouchhh...oww...oww' or carefully trying to walk around keeping on the shaded parts of the floor (as was my tactic!).
The whole place is really beautiful definitely worth the effort!
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