PYAY

Pyay is located about 285 Km north of Yangon, on the eastern banks of the Ayeyarwady River. It is easily accessible by road or by rail which takes about 5 hours. One can visit the busy central market and cheroot making factories. The most famous structure is the Shwesandaw Pagoda which is 60 meters high and one of the most sacred Buddhist pilgrimage spots in Myanmar. A gigantic sitting Buddha image of Hse Htat Kyi, rises up from the tree line adjacent to Shwesandaw.

Other places of interesting around Pyay are Akauk Taung ( Hanging Cliff ), which is situated on the bank of the Ayeyarwady River about 3 miles from the small village Htone Bo. It can be visited from Pyay to Htone Bo village by road and from Htone Bo, sightseeing by motorized boat along the Ayeyarwady River. There are hundreds of niches in the cliff face which filled with Buddha images of all shapes and sizes many of them have been curved out of the rock face. That was the ancient custom check point.

A few kilometers south-east of the town is Thaye Khittaya (Sri Ksetra ), an archaeological site of the ancient Pyu capital which attained its height of prosperity between the 5th and 9th centuries. Very little remains of what was, once a great Kingdom but extensive research suggests that some pagodas here dated back to the beginning of the Christian era.