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The Road to Mandalay Part 4 : Bagan
There are two preeminent ancient religious cities and archaeological sites in South East Asia, one is Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the second lesser known one is Bagan in Myanmar. The unpopularity of Myanmar as a tourist destination has meant that Bagan's vast array of temples have been relatively unvisited in comparison to it's counterpart city Angkor. The LP sums it up quite well saying 'Imagine all the medieval Churches of Europe, built in an area the size of Manhatten island'.
Bagan entered the golden age in 1057 AD when King Anawrahta conquered the Mon capital of Thaton, and brought back to his capital the Tripitaka Pali scriptures, a large number of Buddhist monks and artists and craftsmen of every description. The result was the transformation of Bagan into a religious and cultural centre. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Bagan became a truly cosmopolitan centre of Buddhist studies, attracting monks and students from as far as India, Sri Lanka as well as the Thai and Khmer kingdoms. It was during these two centuries of extraordinary architectural and artistic activity that city and its surrounds were covered with over 13,000 splendid monuments of every shape and size, the inner walls of most of which are decorated with incredible frescoes.
Today some 2,224 monuments from the original 4,446 that existed at the end of the 13th century still stand in a vast open plain covering 16 square miles. From the top of most of the temples you can look out across the dusty plain and see and endless uninterrupted view of literally thousands of temples.
Bagan entered the golden age in 1057 AD when King Anawrahta conquered the Mon capital of Thaton, and brought back to his capital the Tripitaka Pali scriptures, a large number of Buddhist monks and artists and craftsmen of every description. The result was the transformation of Bagan into a religious and cultural centre. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Bagan became a truly cosmopolitan centre of Buddhist studies, attracting monks and students from as far as India, Sri Lanka as well as the Thai and Khmer kingdoms. It was during these two centuries of extraordinary architectural and artistic activity that city and its surrounds were covered with over 13,000 splendid monuments of every shape and size, the inner walls of most of which are decorated with incredible frescoes.
Today some 2,224 monuments from the original 4,446 that existed at the end of the 13th century still stand in a vast open plain covering 16 square miles. From the top of most of the temples you can look out across the dusty plain and see and endless uninterrupted view of literally thousands of temples.
Bagan is divided into three sections, Old Bagan where the ruins are co-located with a couple of swanky hotels, New Bagan where all the locals were "relocated" to by the government in 1990 (from Old Bagan) and Nyuang-U where most of the tourists hang out and every second restaurant offers "pizza and pasta". Staying in Nyuang-U you quickly find out there are two ways to see the temples; you can hire a horse and cart or take a bicycle, we chose the route of most independence and found ourselves on a three day very hot bike expedition around miles of sandy paths that meander around the thousands of temples. There are so many temples that it's impossible to see all of them all. Our route didn't always go to plan and there was lots of pushing the bikes through ploughed fields to a pagoda where we couldn't find the road. Our most annoying experience was where the map indicated that there was a road straight through a golf course and out the other side but a security guy on the gate refused to let us cycle through whilst droves of locals were whizzing along the route. Yes.... I did say golf course... there are even a couple of stupas in the middle of it all... there wasn't a sniff of a golfer the day we didn't pass through.
There are some highlight pagodas which see the most tourists every day. You can easily tell how popular a place is by looking to see how many hawkers are selling laquerware and sand paintings outside. We preferred some off the beaten track temples where we could usually get a few minutes of solitude up the top admiring the view before we were tracked down by someone selling their wares. Unfortunately there are a large number of really young kids selling post cards and trying to collect and exchange foreign currency from tourists. The hassling around the area is very persistent and can become very annoying. The Burmese phrases "I'm not buying" and "I don't want" came in very handy when they didn't fall on deaf ears.
Entrance into the archaeological area is totally unrestricted, foreigners purchase their $10 US dollar entrance ticket at the airport or on the bus on the way to Bagan this then entitles you to unlimited access for an unlimited amount of days to the area. It's largely accepted that most of the entrance fee lines the governments coffers with only a small portion actually going to the preservation and protection of the Bagan area. Sadly UNESO failed to designate Bagan has a world heritage site and has pulled out of the country after allegedly finding it impossible to work with the Myanmar government. It's also reported that the military junta has haphazardly restored ancient stupas, temples and buildings, ignoring original architectural styles and using modern materials that bear no resemblance to the original designs. Interestingly The Plain of Bagan is a living collection, new stupas are being built by rich families, this is a really great thing, its a growing spectacle.
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