After a near full day of travel we arrived in Yangon, Myanmar last night. Our hotel was more luxurious than I could have imagined. We woke peacefully and walked the mile over to the Shwedagon Padoga. It's something that would be hard to miss if traveling to Yangon. It's a large gold temple built on a hill. I knew to dress accordingly but, JM found himself unprepared by wearing shorts. Luckily they rent out men's "longyi" for the unknowing tourists. We hired a guide named Win to show us around the vast and busy Padoga complex. Later we took a taxi to the Reclining Budha temple. The clouds were getting dark as we left and our taxi was nearly washed away in the rain along the way. The amount of rain was similar to a good downpour in the Midwest, but they don't have adequate drainage infrastructure to handle it so it can quickly become a problem. Luckily the Reclining Budha temple is covered by a roof the size of a super large aircraft hanger.
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| Shwedagon Padoga. Solid temple (you can't go inside) lined with gold leaf. The top piece is adorned with thousands of precious gems. |
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| JM was born on a Monday so he threw water on the Monday Budha and symbol (a tiger) for good luck. |
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| Throwing water on the Wednesday morning Budha and symbol (elephant with tusks). There are 8 days of the week in the Buddhist religion with Wednesday divided into morning and evening. I don't remember the time of day I was born on, but I know it was a Wednesday. |
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| Just one man helping another man retie his skirt. |
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| Our guide Win explaining something. |
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| I was waiting for the water to start pouring in, but luckily it never did. |
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| Ringing the bell 3 times for good luck. |
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