The second day in Yangon dawned bright and early with Jodee and I heading out first to acclimatize ourselves, sartorially…

Dalla, this ones for you….

Donned in Lungis, or Longyis as the Burmese call them, we headed over to see the number one attraction in Yangon, the huuuuuuuge golden bell that forms the roof of the biggest of the gazillion Pagodas in Myanmar, the Shwedagon Pagoda.

Monks chilling in front of the Pagoda

The bell on top is pure gold. Like. Pure. Gold. The rest is a half ton size creation completely Gold plated. I wonder no heist movies have been made on this Pagoda. When we visited, I have to say, walking to it, I realized how little the city of Yangon has been Tourist-jaded…. Though the entrance to the temple was lined with shops, as is wont with any big tourist attractions, all the hawkers were content with giving us pleasant smiles to bid us on our way. Nary a local came forward to push their wares onto us. Not only that, I was really surprised to find filtered, chilled, water for free.

Water. Cold. free!

Let me repeat that, in a place where you would normally find chilled water sold for inflated prices in bottles, the center of this tourist attraction was giving away water for free!

Gold Pagoda. Few million dollars. Free chilled water while walking on a hot day to visit it. Priceless.

On entering and walking around the Pagoda, the first sign that greeted us was this…

This is the first temple I have seen where not only can you get enlightened, but you can also get wireless internet. Mind=Blown.

Jokes aside. The place is grand. Sprawling over many hectares, lots of gold and silver statues of the Buddha. It was quite a feat…

I know that I’ve been talking about how untouched this place is, and how calm and peaceful. That is true, but like any Touristy spot, whether Yosemite, Amsterdam, or Bangkok, it does have a few scoundrels looking to make a quick buck. We were approached by a friendly man who spoke good english, and told us he was a student at a nearby monastery, how happy he was to speak and practice his english, and invited us back to his monastery to visit the monks there. We initially accepted. But then one of the neighborhood kids we had befriended who had seen the interaction came over and told us that that person and his brothers ran a scheme where they would take tourists on a ‘tour’ supposedly for free, but at the end, in a place slightly isolated, pressure them into high fees for the tour. We went back and checked on the internet, and it was one of the scams people had run into. So it wasn’t all roses. That being said, I do have to say this was one of the safest places we both visited.

After visiting the Pagoda, Jodee and I, along with a couple others from the hostel we were at, ended the evening over another Myanmar Local Tradition…

Myanmaaauuuhhhhzzzzz