....and started with breakfast on top of the hotel with an amazing sunrise.
We then went to the highest hill in Mandalay which is also a pagoda. After a steep climb in jeep-like trucks, we spent some time just admiring the views.
We had Thanksgiving dinner at a Chinese Restaurant today complete with duck. After lunch we took a one-hour boat trip up one of the local rivers to the unfinished Mingon Pagoda.
The Mingon Pagoda was built by a former Myanmar king who died before the construction was completed--thus the unfinished pagoda name--but it was a grand project.
It's only one-third the original planned size and earthquakes have split it open in several places but it is still impressive. A community called Sagaing has grown up around it and we walked around checking out the vendor stalls and a couple of completed pagodas.
We could climb to the top of this particular pagoda which most of us did and the heat and humidity were in full Southeast Asia mode.....
I really enjoyed visiting the Mongon Bell--the second largest bell in the world and the largest uncracked, ringing bell weighing over 90 tons.
And then Devin tried to break the darned thing....
After returning to Mandalay, we headed to the airport where we were rewarded with a spectacular sunset to match the sunrise that started the day:
After we had several plane delays we made it in late to Bagan and the serious sight-seeing begins tomorrow.
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