THE GUIDE - The Rough Guide to Myanmar - page 263

Uppatasanti Pagoda
Yaza Htarni Rd, around 9km from Thabyegone Roundabout • Daily 6am-9pm • The $5 foreigner's entrance
fee which formerly applied was not being asked for at time of writing • A taxi/motorbike taxi from the Yaza
Thingaha Rd hotels will cost around K15,000/K8000 return, including an hour's waiting time
Naypyitaw's major monument, the Uppatasanti Pagoda (although local pronunciation
makes it sound more like “Uppatadaani”) looms above the city's largely flat and featureless
hinterlands, visible for many kilometres in every direction. Completed in 2009, the pagoda
was offered as a merit-making act by the man responsible for the city, General Than Shwe,
and his wife (displaying a distinct parallel with Burmese kings). The name, roughly trans-
lating as “protection against calamity”, derives from a sixteenth-century Buddhist sutra de-
signed to be recited at times of crisis, and particularly when confronted with the threat of
foreigninvasion-atellingallusiontoNaypyitaw'sfounding raison d'être andtheprevailing
paranoid fear of invasion.
Anear-copyoftheShwedagoninYangon(althoughitcomesinatasymbolic30cmshorter),
the Uppasanthi is impressively huge from a distance, although less remarkable close up,
when the shoddiness of the workmanship, including lots of cheap gold paint with red and
white smears (only the topmost section of spire is properly gilded), becomes apparent. Three
grand staircases lead up to the terrace (although only the eastern stairs are usually open, and
most visitors take the lift). The terrace itself is huge, windswept and depressingly bare, with
only a couple oftoken Buddha statues and a single huge prayer pole to relieve the emptiness,
although the sweeping views partly compensate.
The pagoda's chief peculiarity is that it's hollow. A huge square pillar stands in the centre
of the green-and-gold interior , as if carrying the weight of the stupa on its shoulders. Fine
carvings showing scenes fromBuddhist mythology,history andthe life ofthe Buddha are ar-
rayed around the sides.
In a small pen near the bottom of the eastern stairs you'll find the pagoda's celebrated me-
nagerie of five white elephants , which can often be seen here munching on bamboo (al-
though they're sometimes taken off for exercise elsewhere), plus a couple of even smaller
and cuter ordinary elephants, providing an interesting colour contrast. Locals regard these
rare creatures as being extremely auspicious. Sceptical foreigners may feel that the animals
provide an apt symbol of Naypyitaw itself - given that it's essentially nothing but an enorm-
ous white elephant of a slightly different kind.