The city is just 40 miles away by r

The city is just 40 miles away by river from Sittwe and the trip takes 3 to 4 hours. There are daily flights to Sittwe from Yangon which take 2 hours via Thandwe. The boat departs from a jetty in the Sattroegya, a tributary creek of the Kaladan river and on the way there are many places of interest to be seen along the river.

The gateway to Mrauk-U is Thantara village from where the undulating hills of the city with white temples and pagodas on their tops appear within sight. The Thinghanadi creek is the city's life-blood and the boat journey ends at Aungdatt wharf.

The stone pagodas were built three and four centuries ago and many have been totally neglected for the last 150 years: the sides of the stone blocks fit compactly and are joined with cement thus resisting the absorption of ficus which are capable of reducing a brick pagoda into a shapeless heap of bricks in a few years.