Page 345 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

Monywa and around NortherN MyaNMar 343
DIreCtory
Banks There are branches of the main banks on Aung Zeya Internet SBO Internet (daily 9am–10pm) on Tabinshweti
St, most with ATMs. Rd has a good connection for K300/hr.

Monywa and around

Sitting on the Chindwin River around 130km west of Mandalay and a similar distance
north of Bagan, the large town of MONYWA (pronounced as two syllables something
like “Moan-ywa”) is of minimal interest in itself but makes a handy base for visits to
several fine attractions in the surrounding countryside. These include the gigantic
Buddha figures at Maha Bodhi Tataung, the quirky Thanboddhay Pagoda and the
hillside cave shrines of Pho Win Taung.

Thanboddhay Pagoda
• 11km southeast of Monywa, 1.5km northeast off the Mandalay road • Temple complex Daily 24hr • Free • Main
shrine Daily 6am–5pm • $3
Built between 1939 and 1952, the zany Thanboddhay Pagoda is one of Myanmar’s
wackiest temple complexes: a technicolour riot of cartoon shrines, fairy-tale pagodas
and shameless super-kitsch, enough to make even the most lavish Hollywood film set
blush with embarrassment. Two huge white stone elephants, each with a small temple 8
on its back, flank the entrance, setting the tone for what lies inside.
The main shrine is an eye-popping, blood-red affair, surrounded by a riot of obelisks,
lion statues, sphinxes and shrines, its roofs spiked with 864 needle-thin mini-stupas,
like an architectural pincushion. Its vaguely Neoclassical-looking interior is a maze of
dark-red arches, with walls covered in a dense mosaic of (it’s claimed) over five hundred
thousand tiny Buddha statues.
Further shrines and structures surround the main building on all sides, including a
pea-green bathing pool surrounded by elephant carvings; a string of monastic buildings
painted in vivid pastel blues, reds, pinks and greens; and a truly bizarre tower, looking
like a cross between a minaret and a helter-skelter, with a small stupa on top.

Maha Bodhi Tataung
• 8km east of Thanboddhay Pagoda • Daily 6am–5pm • Free
Even more surreal than the Thanboddhay Pagoda is the nearby Maha Bodhi Tataung,
a sprawling religious complex founded in 1960 and dominated by two of the world’s
biggest Buddha statues. The name Maha Bodhi Tataung translates as “One Thousand
Bodhi [Bo] Trees” (although there are now over nine thousand in total), and
approaching the complex you’ll pass swathes of these trees, each with a seated
Buddha below.
It’s the two giant Buddhas that really hog the attention, however, particularly the
superhuman Laykyun Setkyar standing Buddha image, bestriding the landscape like
some Brobdingnagian colossus and visible for many kilometres in every direction.
Built between 1996 and 2008, this is the world’s second-tallest statue, rising a
massive 116m (or 130m if you include the base) – getting on for three times the
height of Nelson’s Column in London and outstripped only by the 128m-tall Spring
Temple Buddha in Henan, China (which is 153m tall with its pedestal). The statue is
actually hollow, with a 25-storey building concealed inside, each floor decorated with
vivid murals. The bottom five or so storeys show the gruesome punishments awaiting
sinners in hell, while paintings on higher levels become gradually more exalted in
subject matter, with depictions of the various Buddhist heavens at the top of the

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