Mrauk Oo & Around

The ancient city of Mrauk Oo in central Myanmar dated from the 15th century. It will take 5-hour boating along the Kaladan River from Sittwe capital to get the ancient city of Mrauk Oo.

Besides the vast plains, Myanmar is also surrounded by high mountains and lush forests. However, the capital of Rakhine still shows its unique own traditions and features. When you go through Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, you will catch a large and bustling port with goods and products. There are many houses built in the traditional style along the riverside. There are many great monasteries were built during the British colonial, this is the architecture that combines harmony between European style and tradition of the Rakhine. The fish market is pretty busy. In the day time, the men go fishing and the woman selling fish and fresh fruits and vegetables that they have planted.

The ancient city of Mrauk Oo dated from the 15th century. It takes you about 5-hour boating along the Kaladan River from Sittwe to get the ancient city of Mrauk Oo. The river runs over the agricultural lands and fishing villages, occasionally we also caught some scenery of wild migratory birds.

The ancient city of Mrauk Oo with many ancient temples that have an important cultural role can be comparable to the ancient city of Bagan. Father Manrique, a Portuguese missionary, wrote about the lifestyle of the people living in the city of Mrauk Oo, and palaces decorated with items such as grapes and pumpkins which are made of gold and hang on the ceiling. He also described a temple with seven pure gold statues with the same size as a normal person. And most of the statues are decorated with many different types of gemstones such as rubies, emeralds, sapphires and large diamonds in the forehead, armpit, and arms.

According to the archeological data, Mrauk Oo city has about 6342 large and small temples, but due to weather conditions, most of the temples were damaged and disappeared. The remains of the buildings in the city are constructions made of stone. They are nestled in the hills, valleys and small villages. This theory has shown that this city is larger and more affluent than the city of Bagan.

The architectural highlight of Mrauk Oo City is the Shittaung temple. Once taking a Burma tour, don't miss your chance to visit this wonderful site. The temple still preserved 80,000 statues, the temples were built from the 16th century. It is said that the King and Queen’s images are carved on the top of the temple, next to the images of the nobility. The lower picture is further described the people were dancing and singing, or training troops. Minbari King's son tried to be better than his father by building brilliant Kothaung temples located in the east of the city of Mrauk Oo with 90,000 statues. Dukkanthein's basement of the temple is designed as a spiral with statues of women with 64 traditional hairstyles of the kingdom.

There were some other kingdoms before the Mrauk Oo Kingdom that is Dhanyawady Kingdom (from the 1st century to the 6th century AD), Wethali Kingdom (from the 4th century to the 8th century) and Laymyo Kingdom (around the 15th century). Visitors can still catch some of the remaining ruins of the kingdom in Mrauk Oo. The ruins of the Wethali Kingdom are away 10km from Mrauk Oo City in the north. If moving on 30 miles further away, visitors will find ancient temples that had placed the famous Mahamuni Buddha statue. This statue is currently situated in Mandalay.