I had been wanting to go to the Golden Rock but it sounded complicated and it was a little out of the way coming from Inle. While I was in Hpa-An my friend Mel said she stayed in one of the hotels on the top and saw sunset and sunrise. Claire also wanted to go so I asked her if she would be willing to share an expensive room with me at the top and she agreed. The hotels were about $100 per room per night which is WWAAAAAYYYY too expensive for anybody on a backpacker budget.

On the hike to the monastery I met Nikki and at the top we met Dennis and I invited both of them to join us, after all a room that fits 2 fits 4, right?

That morning we took the 11am bus from Hpa-An to Kyaito where we were dropped off on the side of the street and got a taxi to Kinpun.

Once in Kinpun we had to get on the back a big truck with benches that would take us all the way up to Kyaiktiyo, the Golden Rock. The ride up the hill was probably the closest that Burmese people get to a roller coaster. The whole way up was windy and hilly, our stomachs kept going up to our throats! It was exhilarating and a lot of fun but way better than expected.

Trying to find our way around the bus station.

Set and ready to go!

Once we got to the top we walked towards the hotel and we were stopped by the tourist police and made us pay 6,000kyat tourist entrance fee, of course!

We kept walking and sneakily I  had to go and do the check in on our hotel leaving Claire hidden in a tourist shop so they wouldn’t charge us even more for the extra person. I had the whole thing figured out, I did the check in because the reservation and payment was under my name, took Nikki with me because she is blonde and Dennis because he is a guy. Usually people don’t really recognize foreigners so I thought that Claire and I could easily switch purely based on our hair color. In the end it worked and nobody ever noticed we were four in our room.

We got to our room, we opened the balcony door and we were delighted with our view!!! Green mountains in front of us… It was so beautiful and exciting, even more exciting than the fact that the room came with robes!

Shortly after our arrival we went to check out the very famous golden rock and decide for ourselves if it was worth it or not, as many tourist had told us that it was overrated and others had said it was amazing.

The grounds were huge and it was full of people. As we entered there was a little golden rock and we noticed that people were taking pictures and as a joke we said “Can you imagine if those people think that this is the main golden rock?” and shortly Nikki and Dennis come and said “We thought that was the one” haha.

The golden rock is… a huge golden rock! haha 

Well, legend says that the rock balances on top of the hill by the Buddha's hair that was placed right under it. I personally think that a lot of cement holds it in place!

The ambiance around it makes it even more beautiful but the more time we spent in there the more I learned about the rules such as:

We spent quite a long time waiting for sunset and admiring the sky changing colors. 

After sunset we walked to a restaurant and had some dinner. 




When we walked in we said that we were all vegetarian and the woman said ok. We sat but nothing was happening, the woman didn’t bring us menus or anything so I went and asked for menus but she made signs for me to go sit down. 

We were sitting and the turned on the Tv, they started playing music videos in english because… that’s what tourists like, right?!?

Then came our food… Fried noodles and vegetables because… that’s what tourists eat!

It really bothered me that they picked for me, that they picked for us. Why do they think that we don’t have a say? Why do they assume we don’t eat burmese food? I didn’t want noodles and vegetables! I have been fed that almost every day… I do not want that anymore! I wanted a tea leaf salad, I wanted burmese food! I was upset!

I walked up to her and ordered a tea leaf salad, I showed her a picture so she wouldn’t be confused. Then we ordered a tomato salad and more tea leaf salads. 

When it was time to pay she didn’t know how much to charge us so she looked at a man and he said 10,000 kyats! That was ridiculous! I was going to complain but then the group decided to just let it go! I know it’s not a big deal but for me is the principle what counts! The fact that they feel that can charge us whatever they want even when it’s almost double what it should have been. Anyway, we decided to let it go and walked away.

On our way to the hotel we saw that a lot of people were still there but the busses up and down had stop at 6pm and then we realized that the locals sleep on the floor by the golden rock… We could have saved $100 if we knew this was a possibility! haha No way I would have slept outdoors but found it weird that people could spend the night on the tile floor in the temple.

The next morning we woke up early and went to see sunrise by the rock.

Claire in the terrace of our room

As we walked up to the rock we could see many many monks of all ages asking for offerings.





I was dumbfounded when I got to the rock and saw that ALL, absolutely ALL of the offering brought by people were almost immediately thrown into the garbage by the maintenance crew. I know Myanmar is wasteful land but these offerings could feed the hungry, could feed a whole nation but no… it is just feeding the garbages and the dirty streets of Myanmar! Such a shame!

After breakfast we headed back down the hill and saw the many people coming up to see the golden rock... crazy!



That afternoon we got on a bus to Yangon where I spent my last 3 days walking its streets and taking everything that Yangon has to offer.