Burma/Myanmar's top 10 Buddhist monuments

1. Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon
Thousands of pilgrims stream daily around the precincts of Myanmar's most splendid religious monument – a structure of otherworldly beauty. The temple here is often seen as a symbol of Burmese Buddhism and national pride: the gigantic golden stupa rises out from the cityscape of Yangon and is a sublime spectacle.

It is tempting when you first arrive in Yangon to head straight for the mesmirising gilded spire on the horizon, but resist the urge if you can until early evening, when the warm light of sunset has a transformative effect on the gold-encrusted pagoda and its myriad subsidiary shrines. Surprisingly, you'll also find fewer tourists during the early evening, and so you'll mainly share the site with worshipping locals.

The complex can be entered through four different gateways, each approached via elegant flights of covered steps. Whichever stairway you use, be sure to remove your footwear at the bottom of the steps (and remember which one you entered through). Take a guided tour with a local expert on Insight Guides' Love Yangon holiday.

2. Kyauk Htat Gyi Pagoda, Yangon
Not really a pagoda in the traditional sense, the Kyauk Htat Gyi is actually a tazaung (pavilion) housing a colossal, 70-metre reclining Buddha. Although the sculpture is bigger than the reclining Buddha of Bago (see number 4 below), it is not as well known or as highly venerated. The sight is really impressive – good luck trying to take a photo of the whole length. You'll notice this Buddha is highly decorated too, with coloured lips and eyes, as well as exaggerated earlobes...

Visit during your stay in Yangon on Insight Guides' Myanmar Ancient Treasures trip: review the full itinerary online now.

Elsewhere in the pagoda enclosure is a centre devoted to the study of sacred manuscripts. The 600 monks who live in the monastery annex spend their days meditating and studying the old Pali texts.

3. Shwemawdaw Pagoda, Bago
The most outstanding of Bago's attractions is the Shwemawdaw Pagoda, which is to Bago what the Shwedagon is to Yangon. Its stupa can be seen from about 10km (6 miles) outside the city. Richly gilded from base to tip, the pagoda has many similarities to the Shwedagon, and is in fact even taller than its more famous cousin, standing at 114 metres in height. Marvel at its full height in person on Insight Guides' Myanmar Highlights holiday, which includes a full-guided tour of the area.

In the 20th century, the Shwemawdaw was hit by three serious earthquakes, the last of which, in 1930, almost completely destroyed it. After World War II, however, the pagoda was rebuilt by unpaid volunteers (with the proceeds of popular donations) to stand higher than ever.

Like Yangon's Shwedagon, the Shwemawdaw's main terrace can be approached from four different directions by covered stairways. There are not as many brightly coloured tazaung or zayat (resting places) here, but there is a small museum containing some ancient wooden and bronze Buddha figures salvaged from the ruins of the 1930 earthquake.

4. Shwethalyaung Buddha, Bago
The rest of Bago's monuments lie on the opposite, western side of town. Foremost among them is the Shwethalyaung Buddha, which is said to depict Gautama on the eve of his entering nibbana (nirvana). Revered throughout Myanmar as the country's most beautiful reclining Buddha, the statue measures 55 metres in length and 16 metres in height. It is not quite as large as Yangon's more recent Kyaukhtatgyi (see number 2 above; built in the 1960s) but, as a result of its quality and long history, is much the better-known and loved of the two.

5. Maha Muni, Mandalay
The Maha Muni Pagoda 3km (2 miles) south of Mandalay's city centre on the road to Amarapura, is the most revered Buddhist shrine in Mandalay (and second, in national terms, only to Shwedagon), thanks to the presence in its central chamber of a magnificent gold Buddha image – the eponymous "Maha Muni" or "Great Sage" – which Bodawpaya's troops took as booty from the Rakhaing (Arakan) campaign of 1784. Revered by pilgrims from all over the world, it is believed to have been one of only five likenesses of the Enlightened One made during his lifetime, although historical evidence suggests the statue was probably cast in 146AD, five or more centuries after the Buddha's death.

A striking feature of the image's body, rising to 3.8 metres in height, is its covering of pounded gold. So many leaves here have been pressed on to it as offerings that they now form a 15cm-thick, lumpy carapace extending all the way around the back. The Buddha's face, however, remains gleaming, as it is lovingly polished twice each day at 04.30am and 04.00pm by the monks.

Add a stop to Maha Muni on Insight Guides' Myanmar Discovery tour, which includes a 2-night stay in Mandalay.

6. Bodhi Tataung, Monywa (Mandalay)
Among the most surreal sights in Southeast Asia are the two vast Buddhas – one standing, one reclined – on this hilltop to the east of Monywa. The first is a vast, 116-metre standing Buddha –the Laykyun Setkyar – said to be the second biggest of its kind in the world. Stairways twist through 16 storeys inside the colossus, enabling visitors to climb through a series of galleries depicting lurid scenes of demons torturing human souls. The corridors lead to various windows from which visitors can survey the entire site from.

At the foot of the standing giant sprawls an equally huge reclining Buddha, measuring 95 metres from head to toe. Tens of thousands of smaller Buddha statues rest in neat rows under Bodhi trees radiating from the 131-metre Aung Setykar Pagoda, on flat ground at the bottom of the complex, which was officially inaugurated in 2008 and looks set to become one of the country's most popular Buddhist pilgrimage sites.

7. Pho Win Taung Caves, Monywa (Mandalay)
A considerably more ancient, neglected feels hangs over the Pho Win Taung cave complex, a cluster of 492 prayer chambers hewn from three sandstone outcrops 23km (14 miles) west of Monywa. Most were excavated between the 14th and 18th centuries, but with their peeling plaster murals and time-worn Buddha images they feel much older, like an apparition from the Central Asian silk route.

If you're making the trip here, you'll need a decent torch to admire the decoration of the caves' interiors. Some were elaborately painted in geometric designs rendered in earthy reds, browns and blues. Others lead to colonnaded walkways lined with meditating or reclining Buddhas.

The fact that the site lies completely off-the-beaten-track adds to its allure as one of the best Buddhist sites to visit in Burma. Be prepared for a complete lack of facilities, as well as troupes of pilfering monkeys.

8. Shwezigon Pagoda, Bagan
The Shwezigon Pagoda, found within the more built-up Nyuang U area of Bagan, ranks among Myanmar's most revered Buddhist shrines. The prototype for all Burmese stupas, it was built after the rule of Anawratha at a spot designated by a white elephant to house the empire's most sacred relics.

During the second week of the Burmese month of Nadaw (November and December), Buddhist pilgrims from across the country converge on the Shwezigon for the temple's annual festival. The event is one of the nation's most popular, largely because it was at the Shwezigon that nat worship was first allowed to combine with Buddhism.

Visit in the early evening when the sun is beginning to set: time it right and you'll see the last of the day's sun radiating against the stupa's golden decoration, before turning it a glistening, burning red colour. You'll often find the site relatively tourist-free at this time too.

On Insight Guides' Old World Myanmar holiday, you'll see Shwezigon Pagoda from the ground-level and from the sky; including a balloon ride over Bagan, this itinerary is unmissable.

9. Win Sein Taw Ya, near Mawlamyine (Mon State)
The country’s largest reclining Buddha (measuring a whopping 180-metres long) rests on a ridgetop 20km (12 miles) south of the former colonial capital of Mawlamyine (Moulmein). The statue is also the largest of its kind in the world and holds diorama galleries inside, which recount moral tales and stories from the Master’s life.

10. Golden Rock Pagoda, Kyaiktiyo (Mon State)
Forming one of the most ethereal spectacles in Southeast Asia, the Kyaiktiyo "Golden Rock" Pagoda crowns a ridge of forested hills in the far north of Mon State, 210km (130km) east of Yangon around the Gulf of Mottama. During the pilgrimage season between November and March, tens of thousands of devotees climb daily to the shrine, regarded as the third most sacred in the country, for a glimpse of a modest, 7.3-metre stupa mounted atop a lavishly gilded boulder.

The hour-long climb to the hilltop temple can be arduous in the heat, and the journey to and from the starting point of the walk in an open-topped truck is less than comfortable. But the effort is rewarded with the chance to see the magical boulder bathed in the delicate, rose-coloured light of dawn or the afterglow of sunset, when crowds of ecstatic pilgrims and monks illuminate flickering candles and incense sticks as offerings.