I have a love and hate relationship with social media. But tonight, it’s 100% love. Two years ago I wrote an article about my trip to Mandalay, Myanmar. On the article I talked about getting lost in a jade market and ending up in a beautiful wooden house. Link to article; Getting Lost in Mandalay, Myanmar I never really figured out the name or the use of the house. It has been a mystery for years! After countless searches, I took a break. Until a blogger from Thailand contacted me asking about the specifics of the wooden house. I thought I’d give it another search and voila! A familiar photo on google images popped out, linked on a youtube video.
Now the mystery is solved! The wooden house turned out to be a monastery called Kin Wun Min Gyi. Watch the attached youtube video and you’ll see the same monk I photographed in the article. Now I can revisit this place with a specific location on a map. 🙂
Have you ever been to a place so magical it left a special place in your heart? Sounds exaggerated but that’s exactly how I felt upon visiting Myanmar back in 2013. This is why I cannot fathom the recent tragedy in one of my most favorite countries in the world. A magnitude 6.8 earthquake rattled central Myanmar on August 24, 2016. The earthquake was so strong that tremors had been reported at neighboring countries of India, Thailand, and Bangladesh. In between it all is the ancient city of Bagan, old capital of the first Burmese empire. Bagan (Pagan) located along the banks of Irrawady River, home of ancient stupas/pagodas.
Stupas of Bagan, Myanmar
In the ancient times, the record number of pagodas was reported to be 10,000. Years passed by and the number of pagodas gone down to 2000. And now with the recent earthquake, 185 pagodas was damaged. Perhaps, in everything with life, nothing lasts forever: friendship, love, and places. Natural calamities are inevitable, there are no guarantees that the places that we have now will remain the same in the next few years. Let’s take the time to appreciate, protect, and preserve what we have right now. If you have a place that you’ve been wanting to visit, please do yourself a favor and don’t wait too late. Book your flight! Make memories, that’s the only thing that lasts.
My second day in Mandalay consisted of walking, lots of walking. It was raining and the streets were covered in mud. Every step I took felt like the mud was trying to engulf my flip flops. This marked the day I vowed to only travel with Skechers walking shoes or a good pair of running shoes!
After walking around the markets for hours, my travel buddy and I can’t seem to orient ourselves on the map. And so we lay down the guide book and proceeded with more walking! We just walked and walked and walked until we spotted an old house.
How can you not be intrigued by this old house?
How can you not be intrigued by this old house?
The gate leading to the house was open. I took that as a sign of invitation. After a few minutes of exploring, an old friendly barefooted monk approached me. He pointed to my feet, showed me the keys on his hands, and pointed right at the house.
I took my flip-flops off, my tour begins.
How can you not be intrigued by this old house?
I showed him my camera and asked if I can take photos as we go on our tour. He smiled and said ya!.
And the tour starts!
The railings and the big red sliding door has intricate details. The color matches the monk’s robe. Everything just adds to the mystery of the house.
Although my tour guide for the day barely spoke English, he somewhat learned to say, ” All original here”. Every part of the house, according to him, is all original and preserved.Majority of the time we communicated through gestures, he points here and there, and I just look.
Behind the door is a big open space. Everything is old and made of wood. The ceiling is as intricate as the metal door outside.
Many times, during my tour, I wished I knew how to speak the local language. It would’ve been nice to be able to know what he was saying. He talks as though he was giving important details as we were walking in every area of the house.My questions were never answered, is this a family house? A temple? A house for the monks? I will never know.
Inside a house is a spiral stairs leading to the second floor.
How can you not be intrigued by this old house?
At the second floor of the house
Mandalay has been amazing to me. The people are friendly and everyone has been polite and welcoming. This is just one of my favorite memories in Myanmar. I’m hoping to someday come back and go on more adventures. Who knows, maybe i’ll get lost again.
My favorite image from this tour
Would love to visit this man again, I enjoyed his company even just for a brief moment
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