Page 202 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

200 Bagan and around Bagan
5
Bagan and around

As the white heat of the day fades into dusk, around two thousand ancient
Buddhist temples begin to glow a fiery red – just as they have every evening
for hundreds of years. Bagan, the heartland of the first great pan-Burmese
empire, is for many the real showpiece of Myanmar, and its legendary
temples blanket the scorched and scrubby plains in an astonishing profusion
of Buddhist architecture. They lie scattered over an area of almost seventy
square kilometres, constructed during one of history’s most extravagent
building booms.

The sheer scale and density of Bagan’s monuments are almost guaranteed to overwhelm
– its riches are such that many superb temples (which would be star attractions almost
anywhere else) often fail to merit even a mention in most tourist literature. Its
architecture comprises an extended variation on a few basic themes, with a handful of
recurrent styles and structures that have gradually evolved over time – much of the
pleasure of exploring its myriad temples is in unravelling the underlying motifs and
meanings that underpin them.
Bagan is also the jumping-off point for visits to the quirky nat shrines at Mount Popa.
There’s none of the architectural wonder here, but this place offers a fascinating glimpse
into Burmese spirituality with its throngs of excited pilgrims. Nearby, you can visit
Salay to see more of historic Myanmar, where you’ll find carved wooden monasteries,
tumbledown temples and a museum-worthy collection of colonial architecture
– needless to say, it’s an excellent place for an off-the-beaten-track adventure. To the
north is Pakokku, a bustling town that owes little to tourism yet has a number of
extravagant temples.

Bagan

BAGAN is unquestionably one of Asia’s – indeed the world’s – great sights: a vast
swathe of temples and pagodas rising from the hot, flat plains bordering the
Ayeyarwady River, the landscape bristling with uncountable shrines and stupas
which carpet the countryside in an almost surreal profusion and stretch as far as the
eye can see. As an architectural showpiece, Bagan (or “Pagan”, as it’s also sometimes
Romanized) is rivalled only by the roughly contemporaneous temples of Angkor in
Cambodia, but while the major monuments of Angkor have now disappeared under
a flood of coach parties, the temples of Bagan remain, in comparison, fairly
uncrowded and retain much of their prevailing magic and mystery – for the time
being, at least.
Greater Bagan comprises three main areas. You’ll find most of Bagan’s cheap
accommodation in lively Nyaung U, which is a typical dusty, noisy Burmese town

Bagan entry fees p.202 Sunset-viewing temples p.216
2016 Bagan earthquake p.203 Bagan to Mandalay by boat p.222
Exploring Bagan p.206 Cultural shows p.227
The nats of Shwezigon p.207 Ballooning in Bagan p.228
Alaungsithu and Narathu p.213 The Mahagiri nats p.230

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