Golden Rock – Kyaikhteeyoe
Last Sunday it took us 3 ½ hours by car to return from our two days’ excursion we organised with a friend to visit Golden Rock (or the Kyaiktiyo Pagoda) in Mon State. This place is an important pilgrimage site for Buddhist people. Another such significant place in Myanmar is Mount Popa, close to Bagan.
It is seven hours drive both ways from Yangon (you can rent a car with a driver, take the bus or the train) and it is true, as we already heard, the Golden Rock is actually not that impressive. It is a small pagoda situated on a granite round rock which is covered in gold leaves. The rock looks like it’s about to roll over the cliff’s edge. The legend says that a strand of hair from Buddha prevents the rock from falling down the Kyaiktiyo hill. There are many replicas of the rock and the pagoda on top of it around the area.
In the dry season I would hike the road up or down to the pagoda even if it takes approximately 5 hours. The scenery is beautiful and the site is at 1100 m altitude.
For us it was adventurous because of the rainy season. On Saturday, after leaving Yangon we opted for the shorter but slower national road (
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