After visiting the Kuthodaw and Sandamuni Pagodas, and still on the very same tiring morning we caught the truck up Mandalay Hill to the Sutaungpyai Pagoda, which is situated right on the top of the hill.
This was a really wonderful temple to see, with very beautiful and complex mosaic glasswork covering the pillars, walls, ceilings and shrines. It reminded me in places of some of the best work I saw in Mosques in the Turkey in the 80s, which left a deep impression on me. Compare the following photographs of some of the mosques in Istanbul with the ones from Myanmar below:
Photos from Mosques in Turkey
Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmad), Istanbul, Turkey
photo by Emre Ergin
Blue Mosque (Sultan Ahmad), Istanbul, Turkey
photo by brebooks
Suleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey
photo by Traces in the Sand
We were already running short of time, as we needed to get our meal before midday, so we walked down a terrace or two and had a meal with a very nice view. After lunch – tired though I was – we climbed back up to get some more photographs of the Pagoda.
It would have been better to go on a day by itself, and spend time walking slowly down and visiting the other temples on the way, but we still hadn’t got it over to our guide that rushing around everywhere was not what was needed.
Usually on these trips I take them as study-tours, just spending a couple of hours photographing and the rest of the time reading up on the history and culture of the place, and organising the photographs into albums. That leads to better photography besides anything else, as it is then possible to understand what is and what is not really significant.
He made a final effort to pack in one more stop on the way back, at the former King’s Palace, but it was too much and we insisted on heading back to the Teik and a good long rest after a super-hectic day on the tour.
For the high-definition files, slideshow and more photographs please see the SOURCE.
Tomorrow I will show some more photographs taken of the mosaic work in temples throughout Myanmar.
Photos from Sutaungpyai Pagoda
