Shwezigon Pagoda, perhaps one of the most famous in Bagan

The day I was here the monks were offering yearly thanks. The place was mobbed  but it was so good to be a part of it.  Built in 1090AD by King Anawratha

Vandaloo Village on the edge of the Ayeyarwady river.

Wash time for all by the river. 

Some children s toys remain the same the whole world over.  

Only the children wear westernized clothes 

A village made of bamboo

Everything is bamboo,

sandy dusty paths  lead from one side of the village to another. 

Houses are  built on bamboo stilts due river floods. 

and the inevitable piglet. 

Bagan Town; my African upbringing makes me want to call it a township. It has such a natural feel to it that has yet to be spoilt by commercialism

Perhaps the most favorite form of transportation  - Get here before it gets ruined by mass tourism :) I could easily have spent two weeks here. 

A barefoot town  with all types of bikes including e-bikes. 

Stopping for a cup of tea in the local tea room   - served with condensed milk 

Ananda Temple, Bagan

Pagan, now Bagan was once a royal city, the heart of a great kingdom, founded by Thamoddarit in the early 2nd century.  King Pyinbya created a walled city back in 849  with 12 gates and a moat - only one gate still stands today. The time from 1044  to 1287 were the greatest years of Bagan  which sadly ended  when the Mongols invaded. 

The main approach to Ananda Temple 

A Buddha relief wall 

 Perhaps the most stately temple is the  Ananda  shaped like a cross inside with four different Buddhas facing east, west, south and north.  Also the same name as the ship I was about to board on the Irrawaddy river or  as per the more recent name change, the Ayeyarwady River.

Double bodied lions

Bamboo scafolding  used throughout Asia

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 The four different Buddhas with different hand poses.

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