Flower Mountain – Mount Popa, Myanmar

We’d originally planned to fly from Mandalay to Bagan, but a last minute change in timings lost us our flight, so we drove instead.

It was only about 6 hours along a decent road, and gave us the opportunity to stop at some of the villages along the way.

The last of these stops was at Mount Popa. Popa means “flower” in Sanskrit.

Although the hill with the temple is often called Mount Popa, that’s actually the mile-wide volcano to the north-east that spawned the plug.

The temple hill is Taung Kalat, or Pedestal Hill. To avoid confusion the volcano has been renamed Mother Hill (Taung Ma-gyi), freeing up the name Mount Popa for the temple hill.

Climbing Up Mount Popa

This time there was no secret lift like at the Pindaya caves. Getting up the 777 steps is hard work, but doesn’t take long and is nowhere near as difficult as climbing up to the Golden Rock.

Macaque monkeys live all around the hill and watch visitors curiously whilst gnawing at food stolen from unwary tourists.

The acrid smell of monkey pee fills the air, whilst climbers gasp for breath. Visitors have to remove their shoes and socks at the base of the hill, so watch out for monkey droppings.

Throughout the climb, workers ask for donations for cleaning up the monkey mess, whilst vaguely waving a rag at a step in a semblance of cleaning. When we climbed down the same workers were still on the same step, still not cleaning it, still not getting a donation.

The Monastery

Whilst the hill looks remarkable from a distance, the monastery on the top is a disappointingly jumbled mish-mash of styles. The golden stupas that can be seen shining from below are tattered and worn.

An employee at the top of the steps asked for an “official donation”, which I happily paid, but was then greeted in every subsequent room with a demand for more donations.

Mount Popa is the Burmese equivalent of Mount Olympus in Greece. It is considered the home of Myanmar’s most powerful nats (or Burmese spirits) so is a popular place of worship.

All 37 nats are represented by statues around the base of Mount Popa and four of them – the Mahagiri nats, Byatta and Me Wunna – live there.

Mount Popa Visitor Tips

Mount Popa is usually considered a day trip from Bagan, as a way to take a break from the endless temples. It’s only 50km away, but takes about 90 minutes by car or bus from Bagan to Mount Popa.

Expect to pay about 3000kyat by bus or 30000kyat by car to get there.

Local superstition warns against wearing red, green or black, or bringing meat onto Mount Popa. I was unwittingly wearing olive green shorts and a black t-shirt and didn’t have any problems.