BAGAN-HIDDEN GEMS

For the most, our short trips around Asia usually consist of seeing three places in a country; usually the capital or largest city if they are not the same, the second city and an ancient capital. There are variants to this theme but this is the pattern and this is what we did when we went to Myanmar. We started in Yangon (until very recently the capital of Myanmar, at least until the junta decided to build a jungle retreat and move the capital there), moving on to Mandalay (which doubles as both the second largest city and as an ancient capital) and ending our trip in Bagan, an ancient capital that is now a quiet, rural town far removed from its former days of splendour. The rickshaws and tuk-tuks, the hustle and bustle of Yangon and Mandalay were replaced with bicycles and horse drawn carts. Entertainment seemed to consist of men playing kickball using small rattan balls, a game that is popular throughout South East Asia. 

Playing kickball

Few foreigners make it to Myanmar. The country receives relatively few international visitors (about a quarter of a million compared to 14 million who visit Thailand). Of those few who do come, only a small number make it to Bagan. You could sense that the market seemed to get few visitors. As soon as we entered the market, the vendors smelt fresh blood and went into a fighting frenzy to get our attention. Blood might have been spilt, teeth may have been lost in the process. A cacophony of pleas erupted "Hey lady, hey mister, you come here, I give you good price for you, first customer" but their vigour proved too much for Mary who for the first and only time in her life, ran away from a shopping opportunity. The only break to the small town vibe was when a group of about 200 maroon clad monks walked down the main street, protesting against the military dictatorship (our holiday happened to co-incide with the monk protests that received so much international exposure in 2007). At night, there wasn't much to do so we got massages. The first night, we got masseurs to come to our hotel room, I was hoping for a couple of beautiful Burmese women. Massage is as much for titillation as it is for curative purposes. However, much to my disappointment, we got a couple of women closer to 80 than 20. That disappointment soon turned to contentment as those experienced hands worked wonders, clearing my shoulders of knots and getting rid of a day of back pain. And all this for less than $5 an hour. Turning my back on the potential of a younger woman, I welcomed the crone back the next day for another fantastic round of massage.

Massages and monk protests are not what Bagan is famous for. Bagan's biggest drawcard is that it is home to the largest area of Buddhist temples, pagodas, stupas and ruins in the world. Many are in various state of disrepair; some are standing in near original condition whereas others are almost completely ruined, near forgotten remnants of great facades now left to decay. While between 2,000 and 4,400 temples and stupas remain in some form, (there is a lack of consensus of how many structures still remain) it's believed that at its peak, Bagan was home to 13,000 temples spread out over 42 square kilometres. Enough of them still stand that you can understand Marco Polo's description of Bagan as a "gilded city alive with tinkling bells and the swishing sounds of monks' robes". As the Myanmar Lonely Planet says “gather all of Europe’s medieval cathedrals onto Manhattan Island and you’ll start to get a sense of the ambition”. As you make your way through the plain, you can see stupas and temples in all directions, some standing in clusters, others standing alone and isolated. They come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and styles. Some aren’t even Buddhist at all but Hindu. At places, you can look up and see twenty to thirty peaks, more when you climb up onto the top of one of the structures, like the Shwesandaw Paya or Pyathada Paya. If you remember to pack a torch, you can check out the frescos and mosaics or the Buddha statues that are found in almost all of the intact buildings.

Stupas on the plain.

While you could easily spend a week here and still not find all of Bagan’s gems, most people stay for a day or two. We spent two days here. On our first day, we got around on a horse drawn carriage, for about $10 a day. Our driver made sure we hit all the important hot spots like Ananda Temple, the so-called Westminster Abbey of Burma. Vendors were everywhere, selling cold drinks and water, ice cream and trinkets, statues and lacquer ware. Children competed with one another, trying to sell postcards and paintings. 

One of the child vendors.

We left the carriage for an hour or two, seeing some of the sights of Bagan from the river. We visited a monastery, talking to the monks, some of whom had probably been participants in the protest we had seen the previous day. I traded notes and coins with one, discussed the Premier League with another. That night, we watched the sun disappear from the plains, disappear from the buildings and descending out of sight over the Ayeyarwaddy River. The next day, we hired bikes, to hit up some of the more remote sights that we hadn’t seen the day before. While biking is hard work in the sun, especially because there’s hardly any shade, it’s worth the effort. Move away from the main sights and you can go to sites that are rarely visited. You can enjoy spectacular buildings all by yourself (and of course, the omnipresent vendors). Because vehicles are in the main forbidden to drive around Bagan, the roads are quiet and biker friendly. If you do go off-roading, watch out for thorns as they can either scratch you up pretty well or give you punctures.

One of the bigger temples in Bagan.

Bagan was established around the 9th Century with much of the building down in the 10th and 11th Century, the time when Bagan served as the capital for the first Burmese Empire. Bagan was the capital but also served as one of the major centres in Myanmar for religious training, attracting monks and scholars from around Myanmar as well as from India, Sri Lanka, Thai and the Khmer Empire. The golden age of Bagan came to an abrupt end in 1287 when it was sacked by the Mongols (after the Burmese king refused to pay tribute to Kublai Khan). After this, its political status declined but it still flourished as a place of Buddhist worship, scholarship and contemplation. The ravages of time and earthquakes like the severe one in 1975 caused the edifices of many of the temples and stupas to decay, but the sheer number left in some form is amazing. In a blow to the preservation of the area, UNESCO failed to include Bagan on its World Heritage list, citing a lack of authenticity on some of the recent rebuilding by the junta. It is true that some of the reconstruction hasn’t followed original architectural styles and using modern materials. For example, Bupaya Pagoda, one of the older and most revered pagodas in the area, was completely destroyed in the 1975 earthquake and rebuilt in concrete instead of brick, gilded in a more modern style than the original. It also doesn’t help that the junta has sold off land to developers, opened a golf course and built a tall watchtower in the middle of the historic area.

Bagan rates as one of South East Asia’s premier destinations, alongside Angkor Wat, but remains largely off the tourist radar. Hopefully, given the magnificence of the site, it can be hoped that the differences between the junta and UNESCO can be sorted out for the betterment of us all and the protection of the site.