Kakku Pagodas

At Kakku, in the hills of southern Shan State, more than two thousand stupas stand shoulder to shoulder in a field roughly 300 by 150 m. Seen from between the rows, the slender spires rise like a forest of stone, and the whole ensemble is one of the most extraordinary Buddhist sites in Myanmar.

The complex is counted at 2,478 stupas. Most of them were built in the 17th and 18th centuries, while the largest, about 40 m tall, is attributed to the reign of the Bagan king Alaungsithu in the 12th century. What sets Kakku apart from other temple sites is its density: instead of monuments scattered across a plain, the stupas form one continuous mass of spires, row upon row, above which the great central stupa rises. Local tradition reaches back much further, holding that the first stupas here were founded in the 3rd century BC in the time of the Indian emperor Ashoka. The stupas are decorated with stucco, lotus motifs, bells and images of the Buddha, and tradition holds that they are arranged in a pattern following the shape of the Buddha's footprint.

Kakku is the sacred place of the Pa-O, one of the largest ethnic groups of Shan State, who built most of the stupas. Each year the Pa-O hold the pagoda festival on the full-moon day of Tabaung, the last month of the Burmese calendar, which falls around March, when pilgrims gather from the surrounding villages. The site lies in the uplands south of Taunggyi, the capital of Shan State, in the same region as Inle Lake.

Getting there

Kakku lies about 39 km south of Taunggyi and about 32 km from the town of Nyaungshwe (Yawnghwe) on Inle Lake. The nearest airport is Heho Airport (HEH), about 49 km away in a straight line.