I took yet another side trip to the city of Monywa. It was a 3.5h bus ride to the city. When I got on the bus I started to regret making this trip thinking whenever I get on a bus in this country it isn’t fun at all.
When I did arrive, I was lucky to see a German couple at the hotel and I arranged to share a taxi today so we could see the sights. We visited Thanboddhay Paya, kind of a unique and color place which has over 500,000 Buddha statues in one building.
Then it was a trip to the Po Khaung Hills which was also a little wild. There’s a stupa, a 90m reclining Buddha, and a 116m standing Buddha which is the 2nd tallest statue in the world according to Wikipedia (the tallest is in China). You can also go inside this last statue, which is brand new and you can see them still doing some construction inside. I walked up about 15 floors until I reached a gate. I imagine this is similar to what the Statue of Liberty feels like inside.
After returning to the hotel, I walked around and ended up eating dinner at a small table next to the road. I don’t think they’ve ever served a foreigner before, so they were excited and kept giving me so much food. I was getting a little nervous thinking I might have to pay a lot since they keep refilling all the plates, but it was only 1000 kyat ($0.83).
Later I was walking trying to find an Internet Cafe and a guy on a motorcycle stops and asks if he can talk with me and I said ok. He said he is an English teacher and he drives around the city looking for foreigners to practice English with. He seemed very enthusiastic about language.
Today happened to be Christmas Day, but there were no reminders of it where I was. I could only tell from looking at the dates on my photos.