Surrounded by temples in Bagan

After spending the morning at Mt Popa we made our way to Bagan, home to more than 3000 temples and the iconic image of Myanmar.

We arrived early afternoon, just in time for a swim in the stunning hotel swimming pool, before we were on the road to get up close to some of the temples.

We got our driver to pick out the best of the temples for us to visit – we were never going to make it through all 3000 temples, so instead had to just take in a selection of the best.

We visited a range of different styled temples, all impressive. And of course the trinket sellers knew they were on to a good thing as they sold us bowls, t-shirts, pictures, toothpick holders (because really, who doesn’t need a papier mâché toothpick holder?) and jewellery boxes.

We spent the evening watching the sun set over the temples – more stunning views – and then had our driver drop us off in old Bagan for dinner. We had thought we would walk back to our hotel, but it was quite dark by the time we finished dinner and it only cost $5 to take a horse and cart, which looked more fun.

So we jumped in for a bumpy ride back to the hotel – so bumpy that the skirt I had just bought that day fell out the back and we had to pull over while I ran back 50 metres to pick it up.  Sam nearly fell out of the cart laughing.

Of all the temples in Bagan, the most important and apparently most impressive is the Ananda Temple.

The temple consists of four large Buddhas and thousands of smaller Buddhas nestled in the walls surrounding it. There are three corridors around the central four Buddhas, apparently the inner corridor was for the King and Monk, the middle corridor for the Royal family and the outer corridor was for other worshippers. The walls between the corridors are about two metres thick.

The temple is believed to have been built around 1100AD.  Apparently many of the temples here were Indian inspired, which could go some way toward explaining why the temples made me think of the temples at Khajuraho, in India.

After another day of temple viewing we asked to go to a school so our guide took us to an orphanage which was home to 71 children – novice Monks who have no relatives.

The students sleep on a blanket on a wooden floor, all in one room and unlike most of the children we have seen here, none of them looked very happy.

We left a donation and then discovered they receive quite a lot of donations here, though it really didn’t look like they did, but then it must cost quite a bit to feed and clothe 71 boys.

The following morning we were up early to board our flight to He Ho, Lake Inle. The flight was only a couple of hours and we were no sooner in the air than we descended for a quick stop in Mandalay. 

Fast Facts

We travelled in March 2015.

We were here for two nights.

Was it long enough? There are 3000 temples in Bagan so you could definitely spend longer here, but we enjoyed what we saw and felt it was long enough.

Highlights: Watching a seller scramble to find just the right scarf colour for Sam to sell her yet more local products, finding paintings for sale at the top of a temple, there are stalls set up everywhere in Myanmar. Watching the sunset over the temples, it really is a sight to be seen.

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