You know when you know a place is going to be pretty amazing but when you get there, it blows you away? Bagan was like that - everything you'd seen on the tourist photos, and so, so much more!

I thought I would share some photos to follow up on my post about Ingyin Bin village & monastry. We had learnt so much about vipassana meditation and religious life in Burma in our time there, and Mandalay, but it was now time to leave our friends and head off to one of the world UNESCO sites that I'd waited my whole life to see.

Bagan ပုဂံ Pagan was found in the mid to late 9th century and covers over a hundred kilometres. Its predominant religion in Theravada Buddhism which is clear in its thousands of Buddha statues all over the district, particularly in the pagodas. From the 9th to 13th centuries, it was the first kingdom that unified the regions that would later make up modern Myanmar. During it's heyday between the 11th and 13th centruies, over ten thousand Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries were built on the plains alone, and there are over 2000 of them that still survive today. The Bagan Archaeological Zone is seen by many as equal in attraction to Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

We started our journey early on the morning in Mandalay, jumping on a boat for a 10 hour ride down the Ayerwaddy river that would take us all the way to Bagan. Although early, it was worth it to see the moon setting over the beautiful stupas in the hills. Ten hours can seem like a long trip but this was so chilled, just kicking back on deckchairs and watching river life.









Arriving in Bagan we went straight to our accomodation for a night off travelling before hitting the stupas full on the next day. You hire an electric bike and grab a map and off you go exploring 2000 odd temples. It's almost like a savanna - and most definately a plain - and lots of dirt tracks to get lost down. It would get really hot and would be nice to stop for a coconut water. We didn't stay for long in the bigger temples as they could be crowded, and had our best times in smaller ones talking to local people. Some villagers had keys to let you in to the temples for a small fee and would tell you something about it's history.



I mean, you could look at them on a map and still not get a sense of how vast this place is and how many temples there are. It takes days to cover it - if you ever go, set aside at LEAST four days.









One particular morning in Bagan was probably my favourite. We knew 'Bagan by sunrise' was a huge thing and the popular 'sunset' temple was reknowned for having hundreds of tourists climb it to watch it, but we aren't the kind of folk to be with the crowds. We'd found a small ruin of a temple that was our favourite - I think it was the ruins of a monastry rather than a more ornately decorated palatial pagoda. We had struggled to get up for sunrise but I managed to get up early enough to drive down this temple. We really liked the family that had set up a small store there. He'd spent a lot of time talking to us about faith in Burma and the Buddhist faith that was so much a part of their lives. We arrived just before sun-up and climbed the small temple to watch the golden light up the sky. We could hear the monks reciting their prayers and singing, the roosters crowing and the balloons float over the sky.



This was the same temple that I had captured one of my favourite captures - it might be a bit blurry but it's not everyday you can capture the moon, a Buddha, a dog and a temple. The Buddha is harder to spot though!






People had told us that Bagan was maybe not worth going to because of the destruction caused by a 6.8-magnitude earthquake that killed four people and damaged dozens of ancient structures dotting the plains of Bagan. A lot of the tour guides had stories to tell of how they had just finished a tour and the temple where they'd been in collapsed. It was surprising that more people weren't killed. There was a lot of construction work going on and some of the temples were closed to guests. The UN had stepped in to do a lot of work fixing the stupas. Some of course were lost forever. However, none of this mattered at all - the place was still absolutely spectacular.



One of the most spectacular meals I ate was at this beautiful vegan restaurant in Bagan called Be Kind To Animals, The Moon. How could you not visit a place with a name like that? I would love the recipe, if there are any Burmese reading this!



There were far too many temples and amazing things to write about them individually, so I'll just post a few more photos and leave you dreaming. They say if you are going to visit Burma, now is a good time as the place opens up more and more to tourists. I know there are political reasons you might have for not visiting the country but to be honest it's the people that suffer from losing the tourist dollar, which is unfair as they are some of the nicest people I've ever met on my travels in Asia.

I'm not always a fan of going back to places I've already been, but there is so much of Burma I would love to see again, and some places we haven't been to. There's also so much to talk about, so I hope you don't mind if I share more of this trip with you on Steemit at some point!