Page 205 - The Rough Guide to Myanmar (Burma)

BAGAN BAGAN AND AROUND 203
Nyaung U 5
The heart of the busy (if unremarkable) small town of NYAUNG U looks surprisingly
untouched by the thousands of tourists who descend on it every year. The centre of
town is marked by the roundabout at the junction of Anawrahta and Main roads
(both of which lead down to Old Bagan), and next to it you’ll find the town’s
attractive market. There are also a few temples in the town itself, most notably the
superb Shwezigon, one of Bagan’s finest monuments, and the mural-covered
Kyansittha Umin nearby.
Sapada Pagoda
• At the junction of Anawrahta and Kyaukpadaung roads
Marooned in the middle of a roundabout, the small Sapada Pagoda is a good example
of the Sri Lankan-style stupa that was popular in the early days of Bagan, with its
distinctive box-like harmika (relic chamber) separating the slightly bulbous dome
and the top-heavy spire above – later Burmese stupas (see p.390) would replace the
harmika with a lotus-shaped amalaka, achieving a far more satisfyingly seamless and
organic form.
Shwezigon Pagoda
• Shwezigon Pagoda St • Daily 6am–9pm
The most important pilgrimage site in Bagan, the Shwezigon Pagoda feels quite
different from the other temples in the area. It’s closer in appearance and atmosphere to
the great working temples of Yangon than the historic monuments elsewhere in the
city, with its enormous gilded stupa surrounded by a colourful complex of subsidiary
shrines. Despite its relatively modern appearance, the Shwezigon is one of Bagan’s
oldest monuments, begun by King Anawrahta (1044–77) to enshrine (it’s said) a
collarbone and a tooth of the Buddha brought from Sri Lanka – although it wasn’t
finished until the reign of his son Kyansittha (1084–1112) in around 1089.
Long covered passages, each flanked by a huge pair of white chinthe, lead into the
temple from the south and east – although you should beware the shopkeepers on the
southern side, where most tourists enter, as they’re probably the most cut-throat in
Bagan. Inside, the complex is dominated by its vast stupa, set atop three battlemented
terraces, with elaborate red-carpeted staircases flanked with lions rising to the summit.
The stupa is actually built mainly of sandstone rather than the usual brick, although
you can’t see this since the whole thing (including the terraces) is dazzlingly gilded right

2016 BAGAN EARTHQUAKE
August 24, 2016 began just like any other day in Bagan, with tourists drifting between ancient
temples and horse carts trotting down bumpy tracks – but then an earthquake hit at a depth
of 84km just to the southwest of Bagan, measuring 6.8 on the Richter scale.
Only one person was killed (in nearby Pakokku), but Bagan’s famous temples didn’t escape so
lightly – or at least that’s how it first appeared. Around four hundred temples were visibly
damaged in the quake, but experts quickly revealed that much of the damage was not to the
ancient bricks and art, but to the shoddy restoration attempts implemented by the former
military government in the mid-1990s. Back then, the work had been so badly done that when
the earthquake hit, much of it simply crumbled and fell to the floor, while the original
structures (which had already survived countless tremors) remained undamaged underneath.
The potential silver lining to all this is that Bagan, which has for so long been denied UNESCO
World Heritage status thanks to this poor-quality renovation work, is now being renovated
by experts and could potentially obtain its World Heritage listing as early as 2018. While this
work takes place, you can expect many of the temples to be covered in scaffolding or
temporary structures.