We had a long sightseeing day ahead of us today. For the morning a boat trip up to Mingun, a few kilometers up the river, was included.

We left our Mandalay hotel after breakfast and made it to the jetty to board the boat for the trip.

On arrival we made it to Mingun Pahtodawgyi, which would have been the biggest stupa in the world, had it been finished. We made our way around this unfinished building and did follow the path to the building housing the Mingun Bell. With a weight of about 90t and its height of about 4m the bell used to be the world’s biggest ringable bell.

The real highlight here though came at end – the Sat Taw Yar or Hsinbyume Pagoda (စက်တော်ရာစေတီ). A bit older than 200 years this pagoda comes in a setup of seven white layers (or terraces) stacked on each other with a temple on top.

From Hsinbyume Pagoda we made it back to the boat – and back to Mandalay, where after lunch a full afternoon of sightseeing was waiting for us.