The Palace is about 10 minutes walking from the Shwemawdaw Paya pagoda or around 3km east from the center of the town of Bago. From the Shwemawdaw Paya you can easily ask one of the staff there to show you how to walk to the Golden Palace. It was built in 1553 by the famous Mon King King Bayinnaung, founder of the 2nd Empire. The various buildings in the palace area were destroyed in a foreign attack fifty years later. The area remained in oblivion until excavations were started in 1990s to restore the palace - so far only a small part has been finished so far. Based on what was found in the early excavations and drawings of the period by one of the King's Ministers, Letwe Nawratha, reconstruction was started by the Myanmar authorities of a few of the main buildings out of the 76 original buildings and halls in the 4 square miles of the original walled palace. The first stage of the restoration finished in 2003 and now visitors can see some of the splendours of the 2nd Empire. The furniture and artefacts are still limited but the building itself is still a good attraction to tourists with typical Mon architecture. Both exterior and interior of the building is all covered in gold paint: walls, columns, ceilings.
