Burma 2012 - Bagan: Day One

From Yangon we flew to Bagan; an ancient city in the Mandalay region of Burma which was capital of the Kingdom of Bagan from the 9th through the 13 centuries. Bagan sits aside the Ayeyarwady River in a broad valley. At least 10,000 temples, chedis and other religious structures were built during that time. About 2000 remain, many of which have been substantially reconstructed and repaired over the years.

We stayed three nights at The Hotel @ Tharabar Gate in old Bagan. It is named after the ancient city wall gate pictured below.

Tharabar Gate

Thatbyinnyu Temple. Built by King Alaungsithu in the 12th century.

This is taken from the roof of Sinmyarshin. A young boy whose father works for the archeological department offered to unlock it (we made a donation) and let us climb to the roof for this nice view.

Taken from the same roof.

This great elephant was on an old mural inside Sinmyarshin.

This fine mural was inside Pe Nan Dagu.

We had a nice lunch at Sarahba II near the hotel. Mam had a pork curry and I had a chicken and tomato salad. The Myanmar beer is quite good.

It was incredibly hot in Bagan. Over 40ºC (104ºF) in the afternoon. We spent those hot hours either in the room or beside or in the hotel pool. It was just too hot to tour.

In the early evening we took a GPS assisted walk through uncharted territory that Mam didn't like too much. We came across many temples that were unlabeled and seemingly uncared for. This one was quite overgrown. I think it is Saw Hla Whan Paya.

We finally made it to the river where we had sunset drinks at Kyi Kyi Mya.