Bago travel guide

Shwethalyaung Buddha, Bago

The borders of Bago Division, the administrative region immediately north of Yangon, encompass a geography as varied as any in the country. To the east, the 420km (260-mile) -long, comparatively infertile Sittaung Valley; to the west, the broader, more lush and traditionally prosperous Ayeyarwady Valley, fed by annual deluges of silt from the Himalayas; and between the two, the eroded slopes and depleted teak forests of the Bago Yoma Range. From the 12^th century onwards, this vast expanse of jungle and alluvial plain formed the hinterland of Burma’s wealthiest and most powerful city, the port of Pegu, today known as Bago.

Lynchpin of a trade network extending across the Indian Ocean and beyond, Pegu and its rulers, the Mon Kings, amassed wealth that attracted traders from all over the world but inspired murderous envy among its poorer Burmese neighbours at their capital, Taungoo, further north up the Sittaung Valley. Wars between the two erupted repeatedly between the 16^th and 18^th centuries, resulting in the eventual destruction of Pegu and the dispersal of the Mon across southern Burma.

Nowadays comprehensively overshadowed by Yangon, Bago is little more than a provincial market town on the highway north, though it does retain a hoard of superb Buddhist monuments whose scale and splendour evoke the glory days of the Mon Kingdom. Lying only an hour-and-a-half by road from Yangon, it can easily be visited as a day trip, or as a stopover on the longer haul north to Mandalay via Taungoo, the old Burmese capital, with its splendid pagodas.

Top places to visit in Bago

Shwemawdaw Pagoda

The most outstanding of Bago’s attractions is the Shwemawdaw Pagoda (Great Golden God Pagoda), which is to Bago what the Shwedagon is to Yangon. Its stupa can be seen from about 10km (6 miles) outside the city. Richly gilded from base to tip, the pagoda has many similarities to the Shwedagon, and is in fact even taller than its more famous cousin, standing at 114 metres (374ft) in height.

Like Yangon’s Shwedagon, the Shwemawdaw’s main terrace can be approached from four directions by covered stairways. There are not as many brightly coloured tazaung (pavilions) or zayat (resting places) here, but there is a small museum containing some ancient wooden and bronze Buddha figures salvaged from the ruins of the 1930 earthquake. The terrace also features the pagoda’s eight planetary prayer posts, as well as a number of statues honouring certain nat – the heroes of Bago’s history. The stairways leading to the pagoda are like bazaars, with everything from medicinal herbs to monastic offerings for sale, and are guarded by huge white chinthe (half-lion, half-griffin beast), each containing a sitting Buddha in its mouth. Faded murals along the main entrance steps recall the 1930 quake destruction and the pagoda’s later reconstruction.

Snake Monastery

A couple of blocks southwest of the Kanbawzathadi Palace is Bago’s quirkiest sight, a Snake Monastery devoted to a Buddhist abbot from Hsipaw who was reborn in the form of a giant Burmese python. Pilgrims and tourists file through year round to pay their respects to the snake, which measures a whopping 9 metres (29ft) from head to tail and is now thought to be well over a century old.

Shwethalyaung Buddha

The Shwethalyaung Buddha is said to depict Gautama on the eve of his enteringnibbana (nirvana). Revered throughout Myanmar as the country’s most beautiful reclining Buddha, the statue measures 55 metres (180ft) in length and 16 metres (52ft) in height. It is not quite as large as Yangon’s more recent Kyaukhtatgyi (built in the 1960s) but, as a result of its quality and long history, is much the better-known and loved of the two.

It was left to decay for nearly 500 years until it was restored during Dhammazedi’s reign. In the centuries that followed, Bago was destroyed twice, and by the 18^th century the Shwethalyaung Buddha had become lost beneath countless layers of tropical vegetation. It was only in 1881 that a group of contractors who were building a railway for the British administrative station stumbled across it. In 1906, after the undergrowth had been cleared away, an iron tazaung was erected over the Buddha, which protects it from the elements, although it does somewhat detract from the view of the statue inside. The Buddha was most recently renovated in 1948, when it was re-gilded and painted.

Mahazedi Pagoda

Mahazedi Pagoda, to the west of the Shwethalyaung Buddha, is famous in Myanmar as the place where King Bayinnaung enshrined a gold- and jewel-encrusted tooth of the Buddha to confirm the divine appointment of his reign. He had bought it from the King of Colombo on the understanding that it was the original, and much revered, Tooth of Kandy, but the relic turned out to be nothing of the kind.

Undeterred, Bayinnaung locked the tooth away in the Mahazedi Pagoda, where it remained until 1599, when Anaukhpetlun transferred it to his capital, Taungoo. A short time later, King Thalun built the Kaunghmudaw Pagoda in nearby Sagaing to house the relic, where it can still be seen today. The Mahazedi Pagoda was destroyed during Alaungpaya’s time, and levelled again by the 1930 earthquake. With the reconstruction work recently completed, the uppermost walkway around the stupa affords a marvellous view of the surrounding plain.

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Wednesday, March 4, 2015