Sule Pagoda

#thingstodo #familytravel Suggested time to visit: after 4 p.m. to avoid the heat, but still take advantage of the sun glinting off of all of the gold. Entry fee: 10,000 MMK paid to a man in uniform, plus 3,000 MMK for alter flowers & an umbrella (didn't seem like you could say no to the offerings). Time required: About an hour. The pagoda is interesting and you'll see Buddhists finding the Buddha labeled with the day of the week they were born on. The pilgrim then splashes one cup of water for each year of life to date onto that Buddha to bring good fortune in the future. How the experience could be improved: luckily, there's not much traffic there so that allows a slow meander around the octogon. I would suggest cleaning up the entrances as they are cluttered with things that belong in a back room and detract from the grandeur of the experience. An entrance foyer shouldn't be a place to have laundry drying, for example. Also, there's a lovely, lovely elevated pedestrial bridge to the mosque across the street. It's closed and no one is allowed to use it. Isn't it delightful that it was built though? It is such a lovely metaphor for how we should build bridges across differences. Why not allow people to use it? Who knows? It could bring good fortune in the future. The Wikipedia page on Sule Pagoda has lots of information about it. Cafe KSS down the street has a nice passion fruit juice you can order to cool off afterwards.