Here is a video we made at Mandalay Palace Mandalay Myanmar

After visiting Kuthodaw Pagoda, the World’s largest book, we walked along the moat to Mandalay Palace. We entered the palace on the Eastern side, the only entrance tourist are allowed to enter. There was a booth to the left of the palace gate where you show your Mandalay pass ($10 we bought ours at the Teak Monastery). One person in you party must leave their passport at the gate, and you also need to give the name of your hotel to the military personnel. They give you a lanyard in return for your passport, and then you are permitted to enter the palace gate.

You walk through the narrow gate, shared by both cars, people and scooters, past the military guard and into the palace grounds. From here you have two options, you can take a scooter or taxi to the central palace, or you can walk. If you decide to walk like we did, you must stick to the single road way to the palace. The military will enforce this. The palace grounds are still an active military base, so you are not allowed to wander. You are also not allowed to take any photos or video until you have reached the central palace. We walked to the central palace, and it took 10-15 minutes.

Once you get to the central place, you will be greeted by an amazing towering wooden pagoda, with many elaborate wooden palace structures all around it. We walked to the King’s room first, passing by the Great Audience Hall. The great audience hall is the most elaborate building on the grounds. The building is covered in carved lotus flowers and foliage. The caps on the edge of this tower are meant to represent peacocks, which are the emblem of the royals in Myanmar.

After the Great Audience Hall you will pass the Supreme Court, Lion Throne Room. This building is where the King would pass sentences and laws. There is a lion throne for the king inside this chamber. The walls where once covered in figures and flowers.

The palace was built after the second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, when the Burmese had few resources to build a palace. Because of this, the royal palace in Amarapura was dissembled and moved by elephants to Mandalay.

We visited the Glass Palace where the King resided, and walked through the chambers. The queens also lived here, and the ceremony for the nomination of chief queen was held here.

The highlight of the palace for us was the watchtower. The view from the top of the winding tower staircase was incredible, and certainly worth the climb. From the top you can see the entire palace, and beyond. The watch tower is one of the only structures that were not burning to the ground during world war 2.

We then walked back to the palace entrance, retrieved our ID and then walked to the main road to flag down a tuk tuk to our hotel. We were picked up by a very zealous man named Simon. Simon tried very hard to get us to go on a tour with him, but we had walked so much that day, and just wanted to get back to our hotel for a swim and a beer.