Thanboddhay Paya

Top choice in Myanmar (Burma)


This colourful, modern temple is famed for its staggering number of buddha images as well as its carnivalesque exterior, with a unique roof layered with rows of gilt ministupas. Its flanks burst gaudily bright colours and are offset by 30ft-high concrete obelisks set with uncountable minuscule buddha shapes. The multiarched temple interior is plastered with so many buddha images (5,823,631 according to temple guardians), large and small, that it feels like you're walking through a buddha house of mirrors.

Thanboddhay's kitsch fest continues in the surrounding pastel-hued monks' quarters and with two huge, white, concrete elephants, complete with temples mounted on their backs, at the site's gateway. It's about 1 mile off the Mandalay road, 6 miles from Monywa.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Myanmar (Burma) attractions

1. Maha Bodhi Tataung

4.88 MILES

If you're a fan of garden gnomes, you're going to love this place! The name of this vast hillside buddha-rama translates as '1000 buddhas'. In reality…

2. Su Taung Pye Zedi

6.07 MILES

If you have time to kill in Monywa, it's worth taking a stroll around this eye-catching pagoda, a 15-minute walk southwest of the clock tower.

3. Clock Tower

6.15 MILES

This handy traffic circle and landmark is a useful reference point for navigating the city.

5. Shwezigon Paya

6.27 MILES

Monywa's most impressive temple is a gilded work one block west of the clock tower in the centre of town.

6. British-era House

10.65 MILES

A minor attraction in A Myint is the British-era house of the former village chief. It's private and still owned by the original family, who might show…

7. Ancient Stupas

10.7 MILES

A Myint is a charmingly unspoiled riverside village dominated by a series of 336 higgledy-piggledy ancient stupas in varying stages of collapse. All are…

8. Shwe Ba Taung

14.55 MILES

Some 650m beyond the restaurants and souvenir stands of Hpo Win 'village' lies Shwe Ba Taung, a smaller, contrastingly different set of 46 cave chambers…