2 Best Sights in Myanmar

This 325-foot-tall gilded pagoda is Yangon's top tourist attraction and, at 2,500 years old, the world's oldest pagoda. It is simply stunning. Admission is free for locals, and you'll see families, kids, groups of teenagers, and solo visitors milling around the pagoda all day, every day—praying, meditating, and just hanging out. The space is massive and never feels crowded. Women need a longyi (traditional sarong) or knee-length skirt to enter the pagoda, and all visitors are required to remove their shoes in the parking lot. During Yangon's hot days the pagoda glistens in the sun—it can be truly sweltering, and the floor can burn your bare feet. A better option is to come after the sun's gone down, when the Shwedagon is beautifully illuminated. There is an elevator for those who do not wish to climb up.

King Mindon built this intricately carved structure in the mid-19th century as his apartment and then died there in 1878. His son Thebaw believed his father's ghost was still in the building, refused to live there, and had it taken down and moved outside the citadel walls and turned into a monastery. In doing so, he unknowingly saved it from pillaging by the British (1885) and certain ruin during the WWII Japanese invasion. At its inception, the building was more regal than it is today because gold plating and the exterior glass mosaics are now gone, but the interior remains in quite good shape.