It was early evening when Vince and I landed in Bangkok. That morning we’d woken up to the peaceful sounds of the jungle on Cheow Lan Lake, but now we were going to end the night in a chaotic Bangkok night market. We took a shuttle from the airport over to the nearby Amaranth Suvarnabhumi Hotel, where we had booked a single night stay.
After having spent the past couple of weeks sleeping in a tent, then a boat, then a raft house, the opulent lobby of the five star hotel felt like a shock to my system. Everything looked so pristine, spacious, and comfortable. Suddenly I felt underdressed, but that didn’t stop me from flopping down on the plush, ginormous bed when we entered our room. I could have fallen asleep then and there, but we still had plans to meet up with our friends, Rachel and Jared, downtown in a couple of hours. So instead, I took a quick shower and changed into my new pair of elephant pants, which had provided a comfy way to deal with the extreme Thai heat over the course of the trip.
Then Vince and I went back down to the lobby to collect our welcome drinks – a refreshing lemon ginger spritz – before ordering a grab to take us to Chinatown.
Jared and Rachel were already there, they’d arrived in the city early that morning, spent the day sightseeing, and were presently on a food tour. Jared shared his location with us so we’d be able to find them at the end of the tour. Driving into Bangkok was proving to be difficult because of all of the traffic, and as we neared Chinatown, we came to a complete standstill.
Outside of the car windows, we could see that the streets were alight with festive red lights and glowing paper lanterns. Lunar New Year was the next day, and the city was already celebrating. Since we clearly weren’t going to get anywhere by car, we told our driver that we’d walk the rest of the way and he let us out onto the sidewalk, where walking proved to also be slow-going due to foot traffic.
In this instance I was happy for the crowd, because it added to the fun and celebratory experience of the holiday. We dodged and ducked our way along the street, moving towards the little icon that represented Jared on our map. Finally we found him and Rachel, just as their tour was wrapping up at a banana roti stand. Jared bought an extra roti for us to share as we all said our greetings and caught each other up on how we’d been over the last few weeks.
We continued chatting while we wandered around Chinatown, stopping every so often to try different street foods, or buy souvenirs.
Eventually our wanderings brought us to the gates of Wat Traimit, and we ventured inside, following the sounds of beating drums. Below the stairs of the temple, we found a group of men performing a dragon dance. We watched them for a few minutes before ascending the steps of the temple to visit Phra Phuttha Maha Suwanna Patimakon. This Buddha statue is significant because it was discovered inside of a larger, plaster Buddha statue by accident in 1955. During the relocation, the statue was dropped, resulting in a large crack that revealed the golden Buddha image it was hiding.
When we reemerged from the temple, the dragon dance was in full swing, and we grabbed a perch on top of the steps to watch the proceedings. The dancers swooped a large dragon puppet around in twists and circles as the drums continued to play a constant beat. At the end of the dance, a stream of fireworks erupted from the dragon’s mouth sending a shower of sparks into the night and leaving the scent of sulphur on the air. We clapped along with a large crowd of onlookers that had gathered when the dance was over. I was absolutely delighted to get to watch the dragon dance. I remember learning about it in sixth grade when we did study units on each continent. Ever since then, I’ve hoped to one someday, and now it had finally happened serendipitously.
After the dance, we all agreed that it was time to retire to our respective hotels. We had an early flight to Mandalay the next morning, so we needed the rest, as much as we would’ve loved to stay out later. As we walked down the steps and out of the temple, we caught the very beginning of the lion dance, and stayed a few more minutes just to see a sampling of it. Then we parted ways with Rachel and Jared with plans to meet up at the airport the next morning.
Our flight to Mandalay left early the next day. I boarded the plane with mixed feelings of anticipation and apprehension. Myanmar has been in the midst of a civil conflict since 2021, and while we wouldn’t be venturing outside of the country’s tourist green zones, I still wasn’t sure what to expect the next few days to be like. But my mind was put at ease when we boarded our flight. Just after takeoff, the flight crew came around the cabin to hand out red envelopes, a gift for the Lunar New Year meant to bring good luck. Our envelopes contained a small amount of Kyat, Myanmar’s currency, while Rachel and Jared got coupons from the airline. Throughout the rest of the flight, Vince and I chatted with our seat neighbor, a Canadian expat who had been living in Mandalay for several years. He offered us a lot of helpful advice, and reassured us that we would have a safe trip. He also told us about what it was like being in Mandalay during the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck Myanmar in March of 2025. The city was near the epicenter of the quake, and suffered widespread destruction. He even said that they still feel aftershocks every week or so, but that a lot of the damage was already repaired.
When our flight landed, we were met at the airport by our guide, Htut, and our driver from Pro Niti. They would be with us for the duration of our stay, starting with a half-day tour of the famed city of Mandalay. Once the royal capital of the Third Burmese Empire, Mandalay remains an important cultural and economic center to this day. Our tour would give us the opportunity to visit some of the city’s most significant Buddhist sites, starting with Mahamuni Pagoda, but first we had to get there. It took an hour to reach Mandalay from the airport, and we spent the time looking out of our van’s windows as we drove past fields of sunflowers, and small villages with crumbling stupas, which had obviously been damaged by the earthquake.
When we finally arrived at Mahamuni Pagoda, we stepped out of the van to find that the weather was quite pleasant, despite the bright sunshine. Thailand had been oppressively hot and humid, and I was expecting Myanmar to be more of the same, but evidently the climate this far north was much more mild this time of year.
We followed Htut into the temple, passing by construction crews that were busy making repairs all around the complex. Clearly the pagoda had been hit hard during the earthquake, but it was still open for worshipers and visitors. Vince and Jared were wearing shorts, so they had to borrow longyis to cover their legs, while all five of us had to remove our shoes before we entered. Htut led us over to catch a glimpse of the Mahamuni Buddha image, which is a colossal statue cast in bronze and weighing six tons. The famed image is known for a cleaning ritual that occurs early every morning in which its face and teeth are washed by a senior monk. We weren’t able to enter the inner sanctum to see the image up close, but we did get a partial glimpse of it from further back.
After Mahamuni, we rode over to Shwenandaw, which is also known as the Golden Monastery. This initially seemed like a confusing name for a building adorned with intricately carved teak wood. We took off our shoes and approached the monastery, admiring the skillful craftsmanship of the carvings, which all depicted different Buddhist stories.
Then we climbed a wide, white staircase and ducked under a low doorway to enter the building. Inside, it was clearer to see how the monastery earned its name, for the entirety of the interior was gilded with gold leaf. A Buddha image sat at the center of the room, surrounded by more carvings and large gold-leafed columns.
Htut told us some of the site’s history as we wandered around looking at all of its fine details. The Golden Monastery was built in 1778, and used to sit inside of the grounds of the royal palace. But in 1878, King Mindon died inside of the it. Later that same year his son and successor, King Thibaw, was convinced that the monastery was haunted by his father’s spirit. So King Thibaw, the last king of Burma, had the structure moved just outside of the palace walls to where it still sits today.
After hearing this story and seeing all of the monastery’s lovely handiwork, I was sure that this would be my favorite stop of the day. But that honor ended up going to the next place we visited, Ku Tho Daw Pagoda. Our itinerary listed this as the site of the “world’s largest book.” In my mind, I had been picturing it as a really big, standard book with paper pages. I really should have known better, as one of my focuses in art school was bookmaking. While this included learning several different ways to bind paper books, I also learned that books come in many different materials and formats. The world’s largest book, for example, happened to be made of stone, with each page being housed in its own structure called an inscription cave.
Instead of finding a hefty stack of paper, we entered the pagoda to see rows upon rows of ornate, white inscription caves. There were 729 of them in total, and all together, they contained the entire cannon of Theravada Buddhism.
All four of us were enchanted by the site, which looked even more lovely in the soft, waning light just before sunset. We wandered down rows of caves, peering inside of them to see different pages of the book. Then Htut led us over to the pagoda’s gilded stupa, where a few local women offered to make Thanaka designs on my and Rachel’s faces. I accepted the offer and one of the women went about painting leaves onto my cheeks with a fragrant, ochre colored paste. The paste is made from the ground bark of Thanaka trees and has been used as sunscreen in Myanmar for 2,000 years. Even after it dried, its pleasant aroma remained, and later that evening when I washed my face before bed, it left my washcloth smelling amazing too.
The sun was hanging low in the sky by the time we left Ku Tho Daw Pagoda, so we made our next stop a quick one. We briefly went into Kyauk Taw Gyi Pagoda to see its impressive buddha image, which was sculpted from a single block of marble.
Lastly, we rode up to the top of Mandalay hill to watch the sunset from inside of Sutaungpyai Temple, which is a beautiful pagoda covered in mirrored mosaic glass. The golden light of the sun reflected off of every surface as we walked through the pagoda and out to a lookout deck where we could see all of Mandalay fall below us. It was a hazy evening, and the landscape was bathed in an ethereal glow. When the sun dipped behind the haze, it turned to a deep pink color, that stood out strikingly against the gray blanket of smoke.
When the sun finally disappeared out of site, we returned to the van and our driver took us to the Bagan King Hotel. This relatively new hotel turned out to be a lovely place to stay. It was entirely decorated with local handicrafts, many of which we would learn about over the next few days. We ended our evening with dinner and drinks at the hotel’s top-floor restaurant before settling down to sleep. The next morning we’d be leaving early for a five hour drive to Bagan, a city full of ancient temples, and the main reason we’d all been drawn to visit Myanmar.
You can find more details of this amazing destination on my YouTube channel!
