A one-way motor road today saves time and also makes it accessible for those who are unable to climb up the stairs, leading to an escalator and a lift to the pagoda at the summit.

It is a gentle climb and there are many stops along the way, most importantly the hermit U Khanti's dazaung or hall where the Peshawar Relics ( three fragments of bone of the Gautama Buddha) were kept from 1923 until after the Second World War when they were moved to a building at the foot of the hill and no longer on display.

Climbers will see plenty of stalls selling flowers, paper streamers, miniature pennants and umbrellas for the Buddha, and food and refreshment for visitors and pilgrims.

Legend has it that the Buddha once visited the place and prophesied that in the year 2400 of the Buddhist Era a great city would be built at the foot of the hill where his teachings would flourish.

The Champac, with its fragrant white blossoms on branches like candelabra, grows wild on the hill, along with the crimson red flowers over the feathery foliage of the Flame tree.

In March 1945, the British Fourteenth Army's Indian 19th Infantry Division under the command of Major-General Thomas Wynford 'Pete' Rees, dubbed the 'Pocket Napoleon' by his men on account of his size and successful military career, was closing in on the Japanese in Mandalay where resistance was based mainly at Mandalay Hill with its pagodas and temples honeycombed for machine-guns, well supplied and heavily garrisoned.

Aerial bombardment was resorted to when shelling from the hill failed to breach the city wall and destroy the enemy, and Mandalay Palace, a national heritage of great importance, burnt down during the siege.