Amarapura Things to Do

Although the original grandeur of Amarapura is gone as it was used as a wood and stone quarry to build modern Mandalay, there are still many fascinating sites to see here. Life of the people can really be seen here whether it's a monk walking to the temple to pray, children playing during recess from the outdoor classes, an old man smoking cheroot while fishing, woman working the looms, or a man fetching water from the lake to take back to his thatched hut. There were no other tourist around and I didn't feel like one myself.

Bagaya Kyuang, is the largest monastery in Burma. It is huge 19th century, wooden monastery with a large population of monks. You can see the monks at lunch eating out of their bowls if you are lucky.

Near the monastery is U Bein's Bridge. This bridge crosses the Taungthaman Lake over to a small village and Kyauktawagyi Paya. The bridge is made entirely of teak and is 1.2 km long making it the longest teak span in the world. The bridge has remained for 200 years, a testament of the longevity of teak.

The Kyauktawagyi Paya is beautiful temple among a wooded shaded area. Inside is seated Buddha and many interesting frescos. Here on this side of the lake you can find women working the mechanical looms to make clothing.

On the 4 corners you can see these huge carved lions.This area around Amarapura is the first time that I ever got to witness the carving process of this big sculptures. I found it to be quite interesting!

Walking across U Bein's Bridge late in the day and watching the sun go down is a great sight!! At that time of day/night there wasn't any wind and the sounds of the voices just traveled across the water.....

U Bein's Bridge is definately a MUST SEE if you're in Amarapura! It is 1.2 KMs long and almost totally made of teak. It originally was made of teak but a few pilings rotted out some time back and they were replaced with concrete. It is the longest Teak Span in the world.

There are many places to see wood carvers working with traditional tools. There isn't any charge for watching. There is hope that you will make a purchase. There are Buddhas of many sizes and other images available.

I hadn't known anything about all of the Monasteries in area around Mandalay. But when I met my guide he had this place on his list of places to see and it sounded interesting so away we went. We arrived around 10 am to watch the Monks preparing the food to feed about 1000 Monks that are living and studying here. The morning meal starts at around 11 am. It was very interesting to see the Huge pots for cooking rice. There were huge vats of cooked tomatoes and other foods too. There isn't any charge to watch but there are donation bins around so it's nice to at least make a small donation to help out. I'm not sure if this is the way it is done everyday but on the day we were there a family was the benefactor of the days meal. They served each Monk as he stood in line (which was very long).

Here are a couple of Monks that are preparing the rice for the meal. The whole experience was very interesting. It had a bit of human zoo feeling as there were other tourists there also. There didn't seem to be alot of interation between the Monks and the tourists either. I didn't try to initiate any converstations with the Monks either. As I didn't see the Monks talking with other people so I wasn't sure if they weren't supposed to talk with others or not. At other Monaseries I talked with Monks but not at this one. I probably should have started a converstation......

You can see here the huge pots of rice that are awaiting the arrival of the Monks. Each a monk approached one of the 4 huge pots to have a scoop of rice placed in their Tabeiq (offering bowl) It seemed to go quite effeciently. It didn't take as long as I thought it would to get all of the Monks their food.