11-Day Religious Tour of Myanmar with Inle Lake and Mount Popa

• Get picked up at the international airport or your hotel.

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

• Proceed to the Chaukhtatgyi reclining Buddha image, and in the late afternoon visit Kyauktawgyi Pagoda, one of the most beautiful pagodas in Myanmar, as well as the white elephants.

• Continue to Kaba Aye Pagoda and Scott Market, a shopping paradise for tourists.

• Proceed to Chinatown to see Platform Market.

• Stop for photos at Karaweik Hall, the royal floating barge.

• Visit Shwedagon Pagoda with its glittering gold stupa. At the pagoda, observe local pilgrims and monks offering their prayers and enjoy the fantastic sunset view.

Overnight at the 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, which was founded in 825 by two Mon princes.

• Visit Hinthargone Pagoda, where you can see the 'Nat' shrine.

• Continue to the 55-metre-long reclining Shwe Thalyaung Buddha image, one of the country's most revered objects.

• Visit Mahazedi (Great Stupa), a bell-shaped stupa offering panoramic views.

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

• On the way back to the capital, you can visit Pottery Village.

• After continuing your sightseeing at Golden Rock Pagoda, relax at the Mountain View Hotel (Golden Rock).

Overnight at the hotel.

Meals included: Breakfast.

• Visit Golden Rock Pagoda for a sunrise or early morning experience. After breakfast at 8 am, the tour representative will pick you up at the hotel and drive you to Kinmon Base Camp at the foot of Mount Kyaiktiyo (3-hour drive).

• Arrive at Kinmon Base Camp in the afternoon and transfer to a local truck to drive to the terminal near Golden Rock Pagoda (1-hour drive).

• Return from Golden Rock and, on the way to Yangon, visit Taukkyan War Cemetery, the resting place of over 27,000 Allied World War II soldiers. It is a beautifully landscaped area and a peaceful getaway from bustling Yangon.

Overnight at Yangon Hotel.

Meals included: Breakfast.

• From Pindaya, drive down into the valley to Nyaungshwe on the edge of Inle Lake and board your private local boat to take you to your hotel.

• In the afternoon, you will be picked up from your hotel and travel in a long-tailed boat across the lake to Indaing, at the western end of Inle, for one of the most scenic trips on the lake. Passing through the busy village of Ywama, the largest on the lake, with many channels and tall teak houses on stilts, enter a long, often tree-lined canal, on either side of which farmers cultivate their land against the backdrop of the Shan Hills.

• Disembark at the jetty and walk for 15 minutes through Indaing village to reach the 14th-18th century pagoda ruins of Nyaung Ohak. Many pagodas remain charmingly unrenovated, with plants and even small trees growing out of them. A covered walkway popular with souvenir stallholders leads up to Shwe Inn Thein Paya, a complex of weather-beaten 17th-18th century zedi, some newly reconstructed.

• Returning to the river, walk along a lovely shady path for 30 minutes to the Intha village of Sema.

• From here, continue by boat downstream past Yethar village, watching local life on the banks and birds in the trees until rejoining the lake near Phaung Daw Oo Paya.

Overnight at hotel, Inle Lake.

Meals included: Breakfast.

• Get picked up from your hotel and travel by boat to Nyaung Shwe.

• Then visit Shwe Yaunghwe Kyaung Monastery and Kan Gyi Kyaung Monastery in Myaung Shwe.

• Drive up through pine-clad hills to Taunggyi (about 1 hour, 31 km), the capital of southern Shan State and a former British hill station. Approximately 2 hours from Taunggyi, in countryside inhabited by the Pa-O people, lie 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 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 return to Taunggyi.

• Proceed to Nyaung Shwe, where you board your boat and return to your hotel.

Overnight at a hotel in Mandalay.

Meals included: Breakfast.

• Transfer to Heho Airport and then take the domestic flight to Mandalay.

• Upon arrival, the Burmese station guide will pick you up at the airport.

• In the morning, drive to the former royal capital of Innwa (Ava), located on an island between the Ayeyarwady and the Myitnge Rivers. A local ferry carries you 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.

• Return across 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, believed to be the longest teak bridge in the world at over a kilometre.

• Return to your hotel in Mandalay.

Overnight at a hotel in Mandalay.

Meals included: Breakfast.

• Get picked up from your hotel and transfer to the jetty.

• En route, stop at 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 longtail 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 (Ma Thein Tan) Paya and the unfinished, mighty Mingun Pagoda, built to be the world's most significant, before returning down the river to Mandalay.

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

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

• From here, 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.

• Stop at Mandalay Hill, where glittering glass-studded temple walls reflect the evening glow as you watch the sunset.

• Return to your hotel in Mandalay.

Overnight at a hotel in Mandalay.

Meals included: Breakfast.

• Transfer to Mandalay Airport and take the domestic flight to Bagan.

• Upon arrival, the Burmese tour guide will pick you up at the airport.

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

• Visit Ananda Temple, the most beautiful and the first Myanmar architectural temple, as well as a masterpiece of 11th-century architecture. Most of the artifacts are still original and preserved in the temple. Myinkabar Gubyauk Gyi is the best mural painting temple in Bagan.

• After that, visit more monuments and enjoy the sunset at one of the monuments.

Overnight at a hotel in Bagan.

Meals included: Breakfast.

• Explore the countryside around Bagan. From your hotel, drive to Mount Popa (46 km, about 1 hour), home to Myanmar's intriguing 'nats' (spirits). The 777 steps to the top of Mount Popa provide an energetic climb rewarded by fabulous views from the top.

• In the afternoon, drive to the town of Kyaukpadaung and visit the local market before continuing to Salay.

• Visit Yokesone Monastery, built on 154 teak posts and known for its 130-year-old beautiful wooden carvings of the 'Jataka Tales' (stories from the Buddha's life), which decorate the outer walls. The monastery is closed on Mondays, Tuesdays, and public holidays.

• Continue to Payathonzu, a complex of three brick shrines with mural paintings from the Bagan period, and see Man Paya, a large lacquer Buddha image said to date back to the 13th century.

• Return to Bagan through Chauk (53 km, about 1 hour), where you will see old Burma Oil installations (nodding donkeys) and the banks of the Ayeyarwady River.

• Arrive in Bagan and transfer to the hotel.

Overnight at a hotel in Bagan (your arrangement).

Meals included: Breakfast.

• Arrive at Yangon domestic airport, then relax before your departure from Yangon International Airport the following day.

• Depart from Yangon International Airport.