The outer wall and moat of the Mandalay Royal Palace. This was my first taste of Myanmar on the evening that we arrived. We were staying about a 30 minute walk from this spot and I decided to check it out before dinner and got lucky with some pretty ideal conditions once the sun had set. Each of the four walls are 2 kilometres long and join to form a perfect square. While it's hard to tell from this image the moat, which surrounds the entire complex, is 64 metres wide and the wall is over 8 metres tall
Mandalay Royal Palace Panorama | 12 shot Panorama | 24mm | 1/100th sec | f8.0 | ISO100
Mandalay Royal Palace | 84mm | 1/100th sec | f8.0 | ISO100
The following day we visited the palace itself.
The Mandalay Royal Palace was the last Royal Burmese palace before the Burmese monarchy was captured by the British in 1885. It was then used by the British as a fort throughout the colonial era.
During World War II all but two of the buildings (the royal mint and watch tower, from where these two shots were taken) were destroyed by allied bombing. Towards the end of the twentieth century much of the complex was rebuilt as we see today.