The Golden Rock is one of the three main religious sites in Myanmar (ther other two being the Mahamuni Paya Buddha in Mandalay and the Shwedagon Paya in Yangon. Some people think it is a bit over rated, whilst others admire its beauty. But as we were heading past we thought we would stop off on the way to Hpa-an and judge it for ourselves.
The Golden Rock is a gold painted boulder precariously positioned on top of a mountain. The story goes that this is because of the hair placed inside the stupa. Apparently King Tissa received the hair from a hermit in the 11th Century who had taken it from his own topknot. The hermit told this king to search for a bolder that had a resemblance in shape to a hermits head and then en-shine the hair in a stupa on top. Believe the story or not, it is a serious pilgrimage site for the Burmese, and it is expected that they must visit at least once in their life.
The rock is on top of a fairly large mountain and there are two options up. You can walk up (taking around 4-6 hours we understand) or take a truck. Given we only had a couple of hours we chose the truck... or should I call it roller coaster?
Just up from where the bus drops you off there is a large warehouse structure that acts as a truck terminal. Each truck takes about 42 people and they do not leave until there are 6 people in each row so try to sit next to small people and not big westerners (like we did).
The journey costs 2,500 Kyat in the back each way (you pay at the top) or 3,000 in the cab (you can pay even more for exclusivity), but you may need to wait some time for a cab seat. There are signs saying that life insurance is included, which makes you wonder what the journey is like...
The seats in the back are padded but not the back so if you have back problems go for the cab!
When the truck was full we rolled out onto the road and headed up the hill. It was more of a roller coaster than a drive. As the truck went up and down, left and right around increasingly tight and steep turns the crowd started to get excited and woop. The best bit is that you cannot see where you are going because of the cab, so everything is a surprise - something Julia was not too happy about as she isn't one for roller coasters - but Chris was loving it!
After about 45 minutes climbing and stopping multiple times for people to make donations, we reached the top and climbed out.
From the truck drop off, there is a 20-30 minute walk to the Rock itself. About half way you need to pay the foreigner tax of 6,000 Kyat where you get a tag to hang around you neck, just in case people didn't realise you were a tourist.
The lovely chap then decided (after we'd paid) to point towards some scaffolding and drop a bomb shell... 'there is rock, covered up' . He smiled and went back inside his cabin...
What... the rock is covered up? Well we had paid the fee and braved the journey up the hill, so off we went to see if this was indeed the case.
Sadly we had not met anyone who had visited the rock recently or read much about it on blogs/twitter, to warn us, but yes it was indeed covered up. In fact we were quite lucky as when we arrived they were just finishing off covering it up (... maybe a hair had come lose?) so we were able to see a slither of it for about 20 minutes.
Normally there are a few viewing platforms, which would allow the perfect picture, but these were blocked off. Chris could go up close to the rock, but sadly women are not so Julia had to make do with a diminishing view.
After being a bit disappointed but satisfied we had done the pilgrimage we decided to get going. We wanted to ensure we got down quickly as the trucks only go when full... we had read people can hang round for a long time for a full truck and we didn't want to miss our bus.
The ride back down was even more fun than the way up with the breaks squealing and bracing ourselves against the seat in-front. At least the journey was good fun!
For those of you reading this that might be considering whether or not to visit the Golden Rock here is our opinion on it all...
Is it worth seeing the rock?
If you are not a Buddhist and/or hate roller coasters probably not. If you do the journey and can stay over (accommodation is very expensive and very poor in the area) we would suggest taking the truck up and walk back down as the surrounding mountains are beautiful and much more lush than the north. I'm sure if we had had the full rock experience we may have felt differently, but it is expensive and time consuming to visit.
Is it easy to get to?
Getting there was easy. There are multiple buses from Bago, Yangon, Hpa-an and Mawlamyine. If heading from the north, as we did, our bus from Kalaw dropped us at Bago at about 4am and at 5.30 we picked up a mini bus (6,000 Kyat) to take us to Kinpun, the village at the base of the mountain. From there we arranged our onward travel to Hpa-An (7,000 Kyat).
We actually concluded that this final trip was massively over priced and we should have just gone to the highway on a tuk tuk (500 pp) and waved down as truck/bus or hitched. The bus we did take to Hpa-an was a regular local bus, which are not expensive and are a little rustic, but really good fun. In fact it was very useful as we asked the bus driver to drop us very near our hotel in Hpa-an - something the expensive buses probably wouldn't have done.
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| The Golden Rock (courtesy of google) |
The Golden Rock is a gold painted boulder precariously positioned on top of a mountain. The story goes that this is because of the hair placed inside the stupa. Apparently King Tissa received the hair from a hermit in the 11th Century who had taken it from his own topknot. The hermit told this king to search for a bolder that had a resemblance in shape to a hermits head and then en-shine the hair in a stupa on top. Believe the story or not, it is a serious pilgrimage site for the Burmese, and it is expected that they must visit at least once in their life.
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| Men are allowed up to the rock |
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| The Truck Warehouse |
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| Squished in |
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| How bad is this journey?! |
When the truck was full we rolled out onto the road and headed up the hill. It was more of a roller coaster than a drive. As the truck went up and down, left and right around increasingly tight and steep turns the crowd started to get excited and woop. The best bit is that you cannot see where you are going because of the cab, so everything is a surprise - something Julia was not too happy about as she isn't one for roller coasters - but Chris was loving it!
After about 45 minutes climbing and stopping multiple times for people to make donations, we reached the top and climbed out.
From the truck drop off, there is a 20-30 minute walk to the Rock itself. About half way you need to pay the foreigner tax of 6,000 Kyat where you get a tag to hang around you neck, just in case people didn't realise you were a tourist.
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| Tourist fees of course |
What... the rock is covered up? Well we had paid the fee and braved the journey up the hill, so off we went to see if this was indeed the case.
Sadly we had not met anyone who had visited the rock recently or read much about it on blogs/twitter, to warn us, but yes it was indeed covered up. In fact we were quite lucky as when we arrived they were just finishing off covering it up (... maybe a hair had come lose?) so we were able to see a slither of it for about 20 minutes.
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| The last glimpse |
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| Our view of the rock...or more to the point scaffolding |
The ride back down was even more fun than the way up with the breaks squealing and bracing ourselves against the seat in-front. At least the journey was good fun!
For those of you reading this that might be considering whether or not to visit the Golden Rock here is our opinion on it all...
Is it worth seeing the rock?
If you are not a Buddhist and/or hate roller coasters probably not. If you do the journey and can stay over (accommodation is very expensive and very poor in the area) we would suggest taking the truck up and walk back down as the surrounding mountains are beautiful and much more lush than the north. I'm sure if we had had the full rock experience we may have felt differently, but it is expensive and time consuming to visit.
Is it easy to get to?
Getting there was easy. There are multiple buses from Bago, Yangon, Hpa-an and Mawlamyine. If heading from the north, as we did, our bus from Kalaw dropped us at Bago at about 4am and at 5.30 we picked up a mini bus (6,000 Kyat) to take us to Kinpun, the village at the base of the mountain. From there we arranged our onward travel to Hpa-An (7,000 Kyat).
We actually concluded that this final trip was massively over priced and we should have just gone to the highway on a tuk tuk (500 pp) and waved down as truck/bus or hitched. The bus we did take to Hpa-an was a regular local bus, which are not expensive and are a little rustic, but really good fun. In fact it was very useful as we asked the bus driver to drop us very near our hotel in Hpa-an - something the expensive buses probably wouldn't have done.
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