Mandalay Things to Do

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The Mahamuni Pagoda is an extremely interesting complex to visit when in Mandalay. It is only 3km south of the city centre so very easy to get to. The Mahamuni Pagoda is open daily from 6am-8pm, and entrance fee is US$4 for foreigners not accompanied by a tour package, although I cannot recall having to pay it.
It is the holiest pilgrimage site in Mandalay and the second holiest in Myanmar after the Golden Rock. The Mahamuni Pagoda was built in 1784. The principal image within the pagoda is the Mahamuni Buddha said to have been made during the life of Guatama Buddha when he was in the northern Rakhine region of current Myanmar. It is the object of intense devotion to pilgrims from all over the country. The image was brought to Mandalay in 1784 and placed within a specially built Pagoda.
The statue is erected on a 1.84 meters (6.0 ft) high pedestal and reaches a height of 3.8 meters. Countless thousands of devotees, only men are allowed, apply layers of gold leaf on the image; so much so that the image has been completely covered with a very thick layer of gold and its original shape is now distorted.
In a courtyard of the Pagoda are six Khmer bronze statues – three lions, a three-headed elephant and two warriors – that originally stood as guardians of Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temple.
While we were there a monk approached us and escorted us around until at one quite corner he asked for $40 to buy the golden book. Locals seemed to know he was a fake but did not know how to tell us. We thanked him for the tour and gave him a smaller donation for his time.