Myanmar: Monywa Caves (video)

 


WATCH20 Monywa Caves, Myanmar (Burma)

We were lucky during two weeks of our travels in Myanmar to travel with our friends, Anke and Moritz, from Germany. Anke read about Monywa with the 452 Buddhas carved into caves and we decided to go on the way to Bagan from Mandalay.

To get to Hpo Win Daung Caves: first take a tuk tuk to the jetty (2000K), second charter a private boat across (there is no bridge) locals pay 200K each, foreigners must charter their own boat for 2500K for the exact same boat, to go to the exact same place. We saw people take their motorbikes and bicycles on the boats. It was very easy and in about twenty minutes we were on the other side.

It was good to be a group of four as the price is the same no matter the size of the group for the tuk tuk, boat and the transport to the cave which is 15,000K and about 45 minutes. Our driver stopped twice to show us the Copper Mines owned by the Chinese. He claimed that “The people of Myanmar are not happy,” about the mines being owned by the Chinese. We saw local people sitting in front of their wooden huts with children and oxen in their yards. The road was surprisingly good with very few potholes.

The caves are named after U Hpo Win a famous alchemist who once lived there. There are murals in many of the caves and some date to the 14th to the 16th century. “Most of the over 200,000 large and small caves exhibit the Inwa (Awa) style from the 17th and 18th century,” says the Monywa hotel brochure.

In the afternoon we went to the Standing Buddha at Boddhi-Tataung and to Thanboddhay Pagoda to see the 500,000 Budhhas—see the other movies about Monywa. October 8, 2012

This movie is from our 28 days in Myanmar (Burma) from September 28, 2012 to October 26, 2012 and our year TRIP in South East Asia, see all the videos from our trip.

Lisa Ellen Niver

Lisa Niver is an award-winning travel expert who has explored 102 countries on six continents. This University of Pennsylvania graduate sailed across the seas for seven years with Princess Cruises, Royal Caribbean, and Renaissance Cruises and spent three years backpacking across Asia. Discover her articles in publications from AARP: The Magazine and AAA Explorer to WIRED and Wharton Magazine, as well as her site WeSaidGoTravel. On her award nominated global podcast, Make Your Own Map, Niver has interviewed Deepak Chopra, Olympic medalists, and numerous bestselling authors, and as a journalist has been invited to both the Oscars and the United Nations. For her print and digital stories as well as her television segments, she has been awarded three Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and been a finalist twenty-two times. Named a #3 travel influencer for 2023, Niver talks travel on broadcast television at KTLA TV Los Angeles, her YouTube channel with over 2 million views, and in her memoir, Brave-ish, One Breakup, Six Continents and Feeling Fearless After Fifty.

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