As the sun set on our last day in Bagan, I leaned over and gave Jimmy a kiss on the cheek and told him I felt we had been transported to a different realm. Not just transported to a different place in time but a whole different world. The sky was lit up in brilliant orange and red reflecting off the whispy clouds as the sun slipped below the mountain range in the distance. The silhouettes of hundreds of pagodas enshrouded in a light mist gave the feeling that we were somewhere not on this planet.
With over 2200 Buddhist temples and pagodas sprinkled around the plains near the Irrawaddy river, Bagan has the densest collection of Buddhist architecture anywhere in the world. These ancient structures were built in the 11th and 12th century, and archeologists estimate that over 10,000 once stood in this area.
Myanmar has only been open to tourism for a short period of time, so we were not sure what to expect from a small village with one of the most precious historical sites in the world. When our propeller plane landed on the tiny airstrip, we saw a little airport terminal just a few steps from the plane. Instead of just walking into the terminal, they escorted us onto a bus. Strange, but we went with it and thought maybe the terminal was bigger than it looked. The bus then drove literally 15yds to the terminal door and dropped us off. Hmmm…were they trying to be a major metropolitan airport? We had a little chuckle about it as we headed into town in a taxi. We stayed in Old Bagan at The Hotel at Tharabar Gate to be close to all the temples, and the tour book said we were near “restaurant row.” For some reason, I expected it to look a little more like a town, but all I saw along the side of the road were a few open-air shacks selling souvenirs and drinks/snacks. We were pleasantly surprised pulling into our resort though. Absolutely beautiful!
The room was immaculate and quite large. Most of the staff spoke great English. And we had free bikes at our disposal to ride around the archeological area to visit all the temples and pagodas. Excited to see the sites by bike, we plopped our bags down and were off on our first Bagan adventure.
We had a “map”, but most of the roads are not labeled. Many of the smaller temples and pagodas are off tiny dirt paths that cars can’t access anyway. We decided to stay on the main road through Old Bagan to see a couple of the big temples within the city walls first. Gawdapalin temple was built in 1175 by King Narapatisithu and is one of the largest in Bagan.
Notice my bare feet in the picture. In Myanmar, you have to take off your shoes and socks to walk around the temple grounds. This often means walking through dirt, over broken cobblestone paths, and around animal droppings. We got some serious Jiffy foot on this trip, which I tried to avoid by wiping off with wet wipes after every stop. But, dang, that got tedious.
Thatbyinyu is the tallest Bagan temple and was built by King Alaungsithu just a few decades before Gawdawpalin.
After seeing a couple of the bigger temples on the main paved roads, we were ready for some off-road adventure. There are so many pagodas and temples in this area that every sandy narrow trail can lead to something special. We actually loved stumbling upon the smaller, lesser-known sites. With access only by bike, we were normally all alone to explore and ponder what life was like here all those centuries ago.
This pagoda was one of our favorites because we could climb up and get a nice view from the top.
One of the bigger pagodas, Shwesandaw, that is also accessible for climbing to the top is nearby. The steps are ridiculously steep but totally worth it for the breathtaking views.
This was our first high-up view of the pagoda field, and we were astounded. We hung around at the top for quite some time taking it all in.
We spent the whole day bouncing from big temple to little pagoda and enjoying every moment. Ananda is one of the most popular large temples especially for the sunset views from the top; however, a recent earthquake caused significant damage to Ananda and many other temples and pagodas.
Climbing to the top is not currently an option while reconstruction is in process. You may notice scaffolding and colored tarps that appear out of place in many of our pictures. This is all due to the recent earthquake damage. If visiting Myanmar and Bagan is on your bucket list, I would highly recommend going now. Tourism continues to increase, which diminishes the ambiance a bit, and the area is prone to earthquakes increasing the risk of the structures sustaining more damage that is difficult and costly to reconstruct.
As the sun was starting to set, we started to head to Shwesandaw pagoda because we loved the views from there earlier in the day and it was close to our hotel. We didn’t have lights on our bikes, so we were worried about riding home in the dark. As we pulled in, the temple was already significantly more packed then when we had gone in the heat of mid-day. Even worse, rolling in behind us were multiple tour group buses. We thought the road to this temple was too narrow for them, but we were wrong. We were not looking forward to fighting the crowds to catch a view of the sunset and wanted something a bit more peaceful. A travel blogger had recommended a small temple on a tiny unmarked path not too far from our hotel. It wasn’t as tall but still offered a great view and a much more relaxing sunset experience. We decided to risk missing the sunset in hopes of finding this hidden gem. We headed in the general direction and found a path that had a medium-sized temple that we could see in the distance. I think we can make it! We pedaled through some thick bushes and sandy trails and got to this gorgeous little temple glowing in the setting sun.
Unfortunately, there was thick brush between us and the temple, so we could not access it. We also noticed that it was one that we had come across earlier in the day from a different path and that access to the top was closed. Crap! We decided to backtrack and see if there was perhaps one more chance at finding a peaceful sunset viewing spot. We went back to the main road and picked the next dirt path to see what we would find. We went through more bushes and trees until we came across an area where the path got so thick with sand that we could not pedal through. We couldn’t see anything in the distance and were about to turn around, but I told Jimmy that I wanted to walk around the corner in the path and make sure there wasn’t anything hidden behind the trees. Thank goodness that I did! I found the small temple with a handful of people on top. There was a dark staircase inside the temple that led to a small roof. We were just in time to enjoy the sunset quietly with a few other adventurous tourists. Although this wasn’t the highest temple, we had great views of the sun setting behind Ananda and Thatbyinyu.
Htilominlo temple was behind us and glowing magnificently in the setting sun.
After a long (we got up at 4am to catch our flight), exhausting, yet fulfilling day, we treated ourselves to room service for dinner and tried to get to bed early. We had another early wake-up call the next day for the highlight of our trip to Bagan: the sunrise hot air balloon ride.
Aerial views over Bagan grace all the tour guidebooks. With mountain ranges in the distance, the Irrawaddy river, and a couple thousand pagodas and temples dotting the landscape, even our hot air balloon pilot told us this was one of the most beautiful places to float over in the world. We have never ridden in a hot air balloon and figured this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
The early wake-up call was not so bad with the burst of adrenaline from the thought of what we were about to do. The morning was crisp, cool, and clear. “Perfect conditions,” we were told by our pilot. He also told us that early December was the best time to fly over Bagan with fewer tourists and the best weather. We sipped on tea and munched on cookies as the crew busily prepared the giant balloons. Twelve balloons were going up this morning out of the total twenty-one maximum allowed by the government. We got a quick safety briefing and then anxiously watched as they started to fill the balloons. They were so much larger than we expected!!
The sky was just starting to light up with pinks and oranges.
With enough light, we were able to climb on board to begin our flight.
There is nothing quite like the experience of riding in a hot air balloon. The ride is so gentle and peaceful as you glide along over the beautiful scenery. I have had some people tell me that they don’t need to travel because they can see these images on their big screen high def TVs. But nothing can simulate the feeling of the cool, crisp air in your face that is suddenly disrupted by a warm blast of the fire that gently lifts your balloon quietly into the sky. And all 360 degrees around you are absolutely stunning!!
The sunrise coming up over the mountains on one side…
Giant temples and smaller pagodas sprinkled around the Bagan plains on the other side…
The other hot air balloons peacefully floating along…
And close-up views of some of the temples that we flew near.
The pilot was enjoying the morning too and gave us an extra long flight. He traded in his CIO position at a big company to be a hot air balloon pilot because he said you just can’t beat the views from this office. He also runs tours through his own company in northern Italy, so we told him we would look him up when we make it back to Europe this coming summer. After a successful, soft landing, we celebrated with a champagne toast, croissants, and banana bread. The time was not even 8am, and we agreed that this morning experience alone was so special that we could have left and been completely content with our time in Bagan. But, luckily, we had a whole day to continue exploring.
This time, we rented an e-bike (electronic scooter) to be able to go a bit faster to see a few of the sites along the perimeter of the archeological zone. We saw a few more of the big temples including one of our favorites and the most massive, Dhammayangyi, which legend has it is haunted. We never made it back at night to check it out for ourselves. But, the king that built this temple murdered his father and brother to take the throne, murdered his Hindu wife, and then was killed later by her father’s invaders inside the temple, so the odds seem pretty good that some ghosts may be lingering around given all this drama.
We also went off-roading again on the e-bike in search of an isolated cluster of temples and pagodas that I had seen from the hot air balloon and thought looked pretty cool.
We took a couple wrong turns and ended up in the middle of a field with the structure in sight but no access due to thick brush. En route we narrowly missed running the e-bike into one of the few cacti on the Bagan plain and got stuck up a rocky little incline. Once lost in the field, I made Jimmy plow the e-bike through the thick sand as I walked ahead, looking quite silly in my helmet I might add, desperately looking for where our trail went. We double backed and finally found the correct trail. The reward for our effort was being able to explore this cute little cluster in solitude because we were in the middle of nowhere. We loved the temples and pagodas that were off the beaten path and a little overgrown as they have the most character.
In addition, taking wrong turns, which we did quite often, usually brought us to different cool sites like this one. We never figured out the name of these temples and pagodas.
After seeing a few random temples and pagodas as well as all the ones on our must-see list, we made our way to our final stop, sunset on Pyathatgyi temple. We made sure to get there early because the tour buses can make it to this one. Luckily, the temple is large and the whole roof has room to stand, so we thought this would still be a good spot, especially since one of my favorite travel bloggers recommended it as well. We were one of the first few people to arrive, so we took time to walk around and enjoy the views before grabbing a front row seat for the sunset with our feet dangling over the edge.
While waiting, a small group of local college-aged young adults approached us and asked if we would help them practice their English. They were so eager to learn and told us they were so excited for the opportunity to speak to a native English speaker. They drove 2 hrs from their village in hopes to find someone to talk to amongst the tourists. They always find English speakers but said it is harder when they speak to Europeans that have an accent. So, they were so happy to talk to us. We had a nice conversation about school, careers, travel, and politics. In the end, I gave them my contact information so I may just have found a new pen pal. One of the young ladies was a nurse and currently working on her English in hopes of scoring really well on an upcoming exam. A few of the top performers are selected to receive scholarships from the government to study abroad. She hoped to make it to the US to study and most wanted to see NYC and the Statue of Liberty. I would love it if I could continue to help her improve her English and perhaps be a small part in helping someone achieve the dream of studying in America. The students left at sunset to allow the tourists the prime viewing area, so we were left to enjoy the last few moments of daylight with a crowd that was quiet and as mesmerized as we were. Perfect ending to our time in this other worldly place.
Looks incredible!! Always wanted to do a hot air balloon ride!
Definitely something you should do. It was awesome!
You guys are living the dream! Absolutely beautiful!