Mon State

The Mon people established one of the oldest continuous civilisations in Southeast Asia, founding the Thaton kingdom in the 1st century CE. They played a decisive role in spreading Theravada Buddhism to the rest of Myanmar — the Mon script is the ancestor of modern Burmese, and Mon monks carried Buddhist texts from Sri Lanka into the region. Mon culture, language, and food traditions remain distinct from the Bamar mainstream, and the Mon language is taught alongside Burmese in state schools.

Kyaiktiyo Pagoda — the Golden Rock — is one of the most sacred pilgrimage sites in Myanmar. A gold-leaf-covered boulder balanced impossibly on the edge of a cliff shelters a hair relic of the Buddha, held in place by the relic's power according to tradition. The site draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year, particularly during the full moon of Tazaungmon (November). The climb and the overnight crowd of praying pilgrims is an experience that has no equivalent in Southeast Asia.

Mawlamyine (formerly Moulmein) was the first British capital of Burma after the First Anglo-Burmese War and the city where both George Orwell and Rudyard Kipling lived. Kipling's 'Road to Mandalay' begins here. The riverfront is still lined with crumbling colonial buildings, a working port, and some of the best Mon cuisine in the country — noodle soups, sticky rice cakes, and fish curries sold from bamboo stalls at the morning market.