Mandalay, day 2 (part 1)

Januart 28, 2014. Mingun, Myanmar.

Close enough.

It was our second day in Myanmar with Anja, Borut, and Vitia, and there is plenty to share. For part one, we've got the town of Mingun, a handful of its temples, and the ferry there.

Say hello to Vitia and Anja! In the back of the truck headed for the ferry.

"Boats this way" maybe?

The ferry ride up the Irrawaddy River was a great relief from the dust of Mandalay. It lasted a little under an hour, and it consisted of mountaintop temples in the distance, fellow ferries alongside, and a bunch of nice clouds above.

Rowing along the Irrawaddy on a beautiful day.

Kaley and Anja became fast friends. There's also Borut and Vitia in the back.

Upon arrival, we were met with a small army of taxi carts, food stalls, and souvenir shops. Since we were all pretty cheap, we of course skipped the taxis and the food stalls. And went straight to the souvenir shops for some cool hats!

Kaley loves her hat. She also loves when I take pictures of her. 

Shortly after the hats, we discovered Settawyar Pagoda, a small white temple protected by two large lion statues and other seated figures flanking the stairway up. 

A pretty cool place!

Greater than what?

Kaley and Anja waiting on me (left), and the western entrance to Mingun Pagoda (right).

A little further on and we came to the main attraction: Mingun Pagoda. This pagoda is pretty ridiculously large and very, very cracked. As it's a pretty popular tourist attraction, the Burmese government charges people a few dollars to visit, and in an attempt to bypass that fee, we all avoided the main entrance and just walked around the entire complex. Regardless, me, Kaley, and Anja wound up catching the eye of the government guys chilling in their little house, and after we paid, they asked us where our friends were in order to make them pay, but they had gone ahead and we honestly didn't know where to.

This is the eastern and main entrance to the pagoda. There was an entrance on each side, and they all contained a single, shallow room with a small shrine.

The southern shrine.

The southern side. This was the closest I got to capturing the entire place in one shot.

The western entrance held the coolest shrine. Easy to graffiti since it's the back, I guess.

We wound our way along a shop-lined street full of paintings, jewelry, and more hats, and foud our final two stops, the Mingun Bell and Myatheindan Pagoda. The bell is more than than 200 years old and was a nice enough break between pagodas. I first glimpsed the final pagoda after walking away from the street between houses, dogs barking, and climbing a small wall. Myatheindan is a circular pagoda that is all parts sprawling and gigantic and very much white. There were small children toward the top and some of the other foreignors were teaching them some english words or handshakes or something. It was all very cute and touching, and afterwards we found our stray companions and back to the ferry we went. 

Hello, taximan.

After ascending the first set of steps up Myatheindan Pagoda (left), and the Mingun Bell (right).

This is the view I found after walking among some houses. Next time I'll include humans for scale.

As amazing as the three hours in Mingun were, it was only the first half of our very full, very awesome day. Stay tuned for part two! And if you want to see what my first day in Mandalay was like, check this out. Thanks for stopping by.