Getting to the 3122 Temples and Pagodas of the Bagan Plains

Teak pillars inside Yangon domestic airport

A 4.30am wake up call got me to the domestic terminal in Yangon for my flight to Bagan. I do not exaggerate when I say the terminal, from the outside,  looked like a large version of a dilapidated  gas station. Inside were the most amazing teak carved pillars and staircase intermixed with modern day plastic/Formica seats.

Baggage claim 

Upon check-in every passenger is given a boarding pass and a sticker  which one must wear. Just 5 gates, but no signs, There may have been announcements in English, but if there were, I sure didn't recognize them as such.   Watching the changing gate scenes it didn't take long to notice that each bus to the plane was boarded by the stickers we were wearing so I played 'follow the pied- piper' to find myself sitting next to a British journalist heading for the same destination as myself on the new Ananda Explorer, sailing the Irrawaddy river. She too, had used same deduction concepts to decipher which bus would get us to the right plane.

Luggage cart

Air Traffic control tower

Bagan Airport

I was met and whisked off  to the Buleithi Pagoda for a panoramic view of  the  center of the plains which necessitated a climb up the  steepest and  narrowest steps I can ever remember climbing and  next day my legs agreed.
 
In the heyday of the Bagan plains there were once 4500 monuments, the numbers dropped to around 2000 following the destruction of some to build a city wall  and in more recent times  a 6.8 earthquake in 1975 destroyed the rest.. Many have since been added and restored, making the current  number  3122 monuments of temples and pagodas.   Alas, with the mixture of historic and more recent additions this incredible area has yet to be placed on the  UNESCO World Heritage list.

Dhammayangi Temple

Thatbyinnyu Temple

Gawdawpalin Temple 

Panoramic view of the plains