8-Day Myanmar Religious Landmarks Tour with Bagan Cruise

• Your Myanmar tour guide will pick you up you from your hotel. 

• Visit Sule Pagoda and downtown Yangon suitable for walking, and continue to visit the Strand Hotel, the first hotel in Myanmar.

• See the Botahtaung pagoda.

• Proceed to see the Chaukhtatgyi Reclining Buddha Idol.

• Late in the afternoon, proceed to the most beautiful Pagoda in Myanmar, Kyauktawgyi Pagoda.

• Head towards Kabaraye pagoda and then explore Scott Market, a shopping paradise for tourists.

• Step inside the China town to see Platform Market.

• Make a photo stop at the Karaweik Hall Royal Floating Barge.

• See the Shwedagon Pagoda, with its glittering gold Stupa. At the Pagoda, observe local pilgrims and monks offering their prayers and enjoy the amazing sunset view at Shwedagon Pagoda.

Overnight at the hotel.

Accommodation: Hotel

Meals included: Breakfast.

• Drive to Bago (84 km, about 2 hours). The journey takes you through a picturesque rural landscape of paddy fields and small villages.

• Arrive at Bago, formerly called Pegu, founded in 825 by two Mon princes. The highlights include the Shwemawdaw Pagoda, which is over a thousand years old, and whose tip is even taller than that of Yangon’s Shwedagon Pagoda.

• Also, visit Hinthargone Pagoda, where you can see the ‘Nat’ shrine. Continue to the 55-m long reclining Shwe Thalyaung Buddha image, one of the country’s most revered objects. Visit the Mahazedi (Great Stupa), a bell-shaped stupa offering panoramic views.

• Just outside Bago, reach Kyaikpun Pagoda, with 30-metre-high Buddha figures seated back to back.

• On the way back to the capital, you can visit a pottery village.

• Return to Mandalay and transfer to your hotel in Mandalay city.

Accommodation: Hotel 

Meals included: Breakfast

• Transfer to the jetty. En route, stop at the Zeycho vegetable market. 

• Board your boat and travel upstream on the Ayeyarwady River from Mandalay to Mingun (11 km, about one hour). The river is always busy – small long tail boats, bamboo rafts and ferries carry goods up and down the river. 

• Visit the Mingun Bell, which at 87 tons is the world’s largest intact bronze bell. 

• Continue to the beautiful Hsinbyume (Mya thein Tan) Paya and the unfinished, mighty Mingun Pagoda (built to be the world’s most significant) before returning downriver to Mandalay.

• In the afternoon, visit Mahamuni Pagoda, home to a spectacular Buddha image covered with thick layers of gold leaves. 

• Stop at local workshops to see Kalaga tapestries being made, gold leaf being beaten into paper-thin pieces. 

• From here, we go to Kuthodaw Pagoda, where the Theravada Buddhist scriptures are inscribed on 729 marble slabs, giving rise to its nickname ‘the world’s largest book’. Next, visit the beautiful teak-carved Shwenandaw Monastery, the only Royal Palace building to survive the World War II bombing. 

• Atop Mandalay Hill lie glittering glass-studded temple walls, which reflect the evening glow as you watch the sunset.

Accommodation: Hotel

Meals included: Breakfast

• In the morning, drive to the former royal capital of Innwa, Ava, located on an island between the Ayeyarwady and the Myitnge Rivers. 

• Catch a local ferry to the island where your horse cart and driver await you – no cars are allowed here. 

• Pass through the ancient city walls to visit the brick and stucco monastery of Maha Aungmye Bonzan (also known as Ok Kyaung) before continuing to the impressive wooden monastery of Bagaya Kyaung.

• In the afternoon, visit picturesque Sagaing, known as the living centre of the Buddhist faith in Myanmar today. The hills here are dotted with numerous pagodas and monasteries.

• Cross the Ayeyarwady River to the third former capital, Amarapura, via the Ava Bridge, built by British engineers.

• Take a sunset stroll on U Bein Bridge, which is believed to be the longest teak bridge in the world at over a kilometre.

• Return to your hotel in Mandalay.

Accommodation: Mandalay

Meals included: Breakfast

• Leave Mandalay city and go to Bagan on a boat. On the way, you can see local children swimming in the river and fishermen looking for a catch. 

• See the sunset from the boat.

Overnight at a hotel in Bagan.

Accommodation: Hotel

Meals included: Breakfast

• In the morning, visit a selection of the most important monuments, such as Shwe Zigon Pagoda, which is the first and most crucial architectural pagoda. 

• Proceed to the Ananda Temple, which is a masterpiece of 11th-century architecture. Most of the artifacts are still original and preserved in the temple, and Myinkabar Gubyauk Gyi is the best mural painting temple in Bagan.

• See several other monuments. 

• Enjoy the sunset at one of the monuments.

Overnight at the hotel.

Accommodation: Hotel.

Meals included: Breakfast.

• Transfer to Bagan airport and then catch a domestic flight to Inle Lake. 

• The guide will pick you up from the airport. Then, visit Shwe Yaunghwe Kyaung (monastery) and Kan Gyi Kyaung Monastery in Myaung Shwe. 

• Drive through pine-clad hills to Taunggyi (about 1 hour, 31 km), the capital of southern Shan State and a former British hill station.

• Continue approximately 2 hours on a drive from Taunggyi to the countryside inhabited by the Pa-O people. Here lies the ‘lost’ ruins of Kakku, a pagoda encircled by dozens of small stupas. Little is known about the origins of this unusual place – the Pa-O believe that the original pagoda dates back to some 2,000 years. 

• Wander through the stupas, decorated with fine stucco work and Buddha images – some in good repair, others not. 

• Visit a Pa-O village and a large monastery on the way back to Taunggyi. 

• Continue from here to Nyaung Shwe, where you board your boat and transfer to a hotel.

Overnight at the hotel.

Accommodation: Hotel.

Meals included: Breakfast.

• Transfer to Yangon International Airport to catch your flight.