Shwedagon Pagoda

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A spectacular sunrise

I stumble out of a taxi a couple of minutes short of 5 o'clock on Saturday morning. Raising my head, I stare up a seemingly never-ending set of steps upwards, snaking underneath a long verandah and painted in amber floodlight. Shutting the car door, the driver pulls away, leaving me standing alone at the base of Yangon 's most famous landmark with no one else to be seen and I wonder for a moment if I've arrived too early.

I'm here at the insistence of the Bangkok travel agent who sold me my plane tickets, and swore the best, the only time to visit the Shwedagon Paya was at dawn; partly because of health recommendations against walking in the required bare feet across a tiled open-air ground that could fry an egg in the afternoon sun; partly because it often takes an ungodly hour to see a spiritual site without the crowds, but also because she tells me a combination of this temple and the dawn light is nothing short of jaw-dropping. In fact for no extra charge, this agent marched into the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok to personally retrieve my passport back a day earlier than it was due, just so I could catch the Friday afternoon flight and stand here at this hour.

The Zedi is 96 metres high

I ascend the long set of steps of Singutara Hill and my first sight at the top is the huge towering zedi, a massive bell-shaped structure 100 metres tall and completely covered in gold leaf. It's utterly breathtaking. At its base to the front, a half-dozen worshippers crowd in a small temple, and all the way surrounding the zedi I can see dozens of smaller stupas of similar shape to the zedi also covered completely in gold-leaf, encircling it in two rows.

Walking clockwise around the base of the zedi, more local worshipers and monks arrive, taking their place in front of any one of scores of Buddha statues either in front of the tall structure or inside one of the many small temples around it. Their legs are crossed and their eyes are closed deep in a trance-like prayer; all are completely ignoring me. It feels as if I've stepped into a Hollywood movie set of yesteryear but despite my out-of-place presence, no one has called a halt to the action.

praying on the terrace

And then slowly the amber flood-light that bathes the gold-leaf gives way to the first dawn rays. The sky goes from a punctured black to deep blue and far off to the south, the glow of the morning sun pushes over the edge of the horizon and turns the colour of the gold-covered stupas into their more natural sparkling yellow gleam. More people arrive, and the open air gradually becomes completely filled with the sounds of monks and lay-worshippers chanting. The atmosphere of sight and sound is so intense I have to sit down for a while to take it all in; goosebumps that have nothing to do with temperature are covering my arms. As it becomes lighter, the colours change shade again and again, until the sun is fully over the horizon and the morning light fully takes hold, bathing this amazing landmark in its full glory.

Monk praying

Later, as I go to leave by making my way down the stairs I ascended three hours ago, I pass a Chinese photographer who's just arrived, the first other tourist I've seen that morning. I'm sure the Swedagon Paya makes for a pretty picture at any time of the day, but I feel utterly blessed having just been through an unforgettable early morning experience, and a dazzling introduction to Myanmar .