Golden Boulder Showdown - The Challenger, Nwa La Bo Pagoda

Nwa La Bo Pagoda, about 12km outside of Mawlamyine. This golden boulder is actually three boulders precariously resting atop each other.

These young ladies were way more interested in taking pictures with Jin than in actually checking out the Boulder or Pagoda.

ah, symmetry

The dark spot is where local men(only men are allowed to touch the rock) have purchased gold leaf strips(sold outside) and affixed them themselves to the boulder. 

When we left, there were some women outside collecting donations from cars and trucks driving by. They told us to wait by them. We couldn't understand each other, but they were pretty adamant about helping us. We watched car after car drive by without picking us up. Finally, this truck pulled up and we thought we were getting a shared pickup taxi back to Mawmalyine, the same way we had gotten there. It turns out it was just two friendly guys with a truck who drove us to town. They didn't want any money or anything. We had a nice shady seat in the back of their pickup.