Shwedagon Pagoda

I've arrived in Myanmar! Danna and I flew in yesterday morning to quite possibly the most relaxed airport anywhere. Everyone was extremely friendly and it barely took us 30 minutes to get off the plane, get visas, go through immigration, get our bags and find a taxi!

Upon dropping our things and after a few wrong turns, we managed to get ourselves to a traditional Burmese restaurant for a late lunch. The whole experience was quite crazy. The food was delicious but neither of us had any idea as to what we were eating. I could for sure identify the rice and chicken. The rest was a mystery.

Compared to Jakarta, Yangon is extremely easy to navigate and pedestrian friendly. The streets are actually in a grid format rather than the crazy loops that make up Jakarta.

Now, onto the real reason for this blog post, Shwedagon Pagoda!!! Oh my word, what a magnificent place! A couple of years ago, they had a huge celebration to commemorate the pagoda's 2,600th year. It is incredible to think that it has lasted this long and stood the test of time.

Shwedagon Pagoda

The height of the Pagoda is 326 feet and the top, called the vane, is adorned with all kinds of jewels and on the very top is the diamond orb. It is made up of 4,351 diamonds! The Pagoda was built to enshrine strands of Buddha's hair along with other relics.

 Walking up the stairs and into the pagoda area is an indescribable experience. There are monks all over and Burmese people praying at every turn. The peace that envelops you upon walking in is amazing. As Danna and I wandered around in awe, with our mouths hanging open at the magnificence of every structure, building and statue, we were chased inside by a downpour. Most would say this was unfortunate, but it ended up being one of the coolest things that's ever happened to me! A monk, named Unya, came up started talking to us and offered to show us around once the rain let up.

When Unya first came up and began speaking to us, I was quite confused. Everything I've read has warned against women getting too close to monks and says never to touch them. I had just assumed this meant we weren't supposed to talk to them as well. Luckily for us, this is not the case and we hung out with Unya for a couple of hours. He showed us where his prayer day was and took us to the Buddha statues we were most interested in seeing.

A bit after sunset, Unya took us to a spot where if you stand in certain areas, the light on the vane changes colors. If can be either white, yellow, orange, red, green or blue depending upon where you stand. This plus seeing the Pagoda lit up was really just the icing on top of the perfect day cake.