The Shwedagon is one of the most remarkable religious buildings in Asia. Situated on a hilltop in central Yangon, it is 325 feet tall and still dominates the city’s skyline. Tradition insists that the pagoda is more than 2,500 years old and was constructed to cover relics that include eight strands of the Buddha’s hair. Archaeologists, however, are of the more prosaic opinion that it was built over a millennium ago, by the Mon people, between the 6th and 10th centuries.