Page 233 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

AROUND BAGAN BAGAN AND AROUND 231
Non-guests can pay $2 to use the pool and admire the arriving with a private driver from Bagan then you will 5
invariably stop and eat at Yangon Restaurant a short drive
view. $100
Yangon Restaurant A 5min drive from Taung Kalat on away. Despite catching most of the tourist trade, this
the road to Bagan. There are loads of cheap and quick restaurant’s Burmese and Thai dishes are very tasty. Mains
places to eat at the base of Taung Kalat, but if you’re around K4000. Daily 8am–6pm.

Salay

Around 50km south of New Bagan, just south of the town of Chauk on the banks of
the Ayeyarwady, SALAY (aka “Sale”) had a brief flowering of importance as a satellite of
Bagan in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, before falling back into relative obscurity.
Just before the close of the nineteenth century, the British discovered oil buried under
the ground around here and the town became rich on black gold and the passing river
trade. This sudden influx of wealth allowed the inhabitants to build majestic Burmese-
Victorian townhouses – a number of which still stand, in various states of decrepitude.
Salay is today home to around fifty active monasteries, as well as over a hundred
Bagan-era monuments. Note that there is nowhere to stay in Salay.
Yoke Sone Kyaung
• Tues–Sun 9.30am–4.30pm • K5000
Salay’s main attraction is the impressive Yoke Sone Kyaung (aka “Youqson Kyaung”).
Built in 1882, the unusual wooden structure consists of a large platform, raised on
pillars, with a cluster of intricately carved wooden shrines on top. Flamboyant
woodcarvings along its outer walls show scenes from the Jataka and Ramayana. The
monastery is also home to the small U Pone Nya Museum, named after the celebrated
nineteenth-century Burmese writer and containing assorted exhibits from other sites
in Salay, including further fine woodcarvings.
Opposite the Yoke Sone Kyaung is a colonial-era library complex consisting of two
separate buildings (one building dates from 1922 and the other from 1926) attached
to one another via a very short enclosed iron bridge. Today, it serves as a library for
the nearby monasteries. Due to the dearth of tourists in Salay the museum is often
kept locked up, but even if there’s nobody around to open it up, you can still walk
around the outside.

Other monuments
On the opposite side of the road from the Yoke Sone Kyaung is the Sar Sanatan Khon
monk training school, and the tumbledown white monastery, covered in plants and
vines, dates from the 1860s. Right next to this is another wooden monastery, adorned
with a few carvings and stone lions standing guard outside.
Beyond is a cluster of other temples: some gaudy and new, some majestic and ancient.
These include the Payathonzu, an unusual tripartite temple similar to its namesake
in Bagan (see p.218). Close by, the Man Paya Pagoda is home to the 7m-tall Shinbin
Maha Laba, the largest lacquer Buddha image in Myanmar, said to date back to the
thirteenth century.
Around 6km south of town, the Shinpinsarkyo Pagoda boasts some fine murals and
a thirteenth-century wooden Buddha, while a further 1.5km beyond, so-called Temple
99 has further excellent Jataka murals in its small thirteenth-century shrine. It’s also
worth devoting some time to exploring the small town centre, with its collection of
mildewed colonial buildings.
ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE SALAY
By bus and pick-up From Bagan, take one of the frequent and slow pick-up truck to Salay. It will stop in every village
buses to Chauk and change there for a hugely overcrowded between Chauk and Salay, but you’ll get there eventually.