A wonder land of spire pagodas and sculptured figured located in North Okkalapa, a satellite town about 20 minutes drive from the city centre. Mei Lamu Pagoda is famous for the giant images depicting Buddha’s earlier lives. Mae Lamu Pagoda is located in suburban town, North Okkalapa, Yangon.It has a spacious ground where visitors love to stroll around. Known for it's wonderland of spired pagodas and sculptured figures located in a sub-urban town, North Okkalapa. It is famous for the giant images depicting Buddha's earlier lives.
The site near the creek of Nga Moe Yeik, was found in the 1950's and the Pagoda was built. Near the entrance the figure of Mai Lamu can be seen. There is a huge figure of reptile into whose belly you can walk in. There is also a figure of crocodile with wide-open jaws.
Legend
Mae Lamu means Maid of the Mangrove. There was a legendary saying about this Pagoda.
It was said that a hermit once came upon a mangrove tree bearing an abnormally large bud which he took to his retreat and it later produced a girl child. The child was nurtured and brought up by the hermit who named her Mae Lamu on account of her being born of a mangrove fruit. She grew up into a beautiful woman and Sakka (or the Indra), monarch of the celestial divinities, fell in love with her. After asking for her hand in marriage from the hermit, the lord of the celestial gods fathered a child who, it was said eventually became King of Okkalapa, the name by which Yangon had been referred to in the remote past. Representations of the Maid of the Mangrove and her heavenly suitor can be seen at the southwest corner of the Shwedagon Pagoda.
In 1959, during the clearing of land near the Ngamoeyeik tidal stream as part of the programme in setting up the new township of North Okkalapa, the stump of a ruined pagoda overgrown by a hardwood tree was revealed. Eventually a donor materialized who built a new pagoda at this site. As the ruins were being cleared before the construction of the new pagoda, a casket bearing a figurine of a woman was recovered from the reliquary of the ruined pagoda. The figurine was said to resemble the Mae Lamu statue on the Shwedagon Pagoda exactly and in the light of the legendary association of a crocodile named Ngamoeyeik involved in the legend of King Okkalapa with the location of the ruined pagoda by the Ngamoeyeik stream, the shrine came to be known as Mae Lamu Pagoda. A stylized fruit of the mangrove is also featured in the construction of the pagoda. There is also an image of the reclining Buddha and clustered around these Main edifices are compositions in stucco of various episodes in the life of the Buddha.
