Here a temple, there a temple, everywhere a temple...

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Bagan

Bagan is one of my favourite ancient cities of Asia, although it's relatively unknown to much of the world, it's an awesome cluster of 1,000 year old Buddhist temples and monuments covering an area that is measured 40 square kilometers, you can find dozens... no, hundreds... oh well, in fact over four thousand temples, stupas, and other strictly religious buildings, resulting from the millenium-old Burmese frenetic habit of trying to buy a better reincarnation.

Sat in the back of a cart, pulled by horse power we set off to explore in the blistering heat. Bagan is often compared to Angkor Wat in Cambodia as a major south-east Asian historical religious site. The scale is not the same, here in Bagan buildings are smaller, but ridiculous in number and they often house century-old wall paintings. The concentration of these thousands of constructions over a very small surface area is also quite special.

The temples, right down to the smallest stupa, are intricately built and filled with Buddha’s of all sizes and shapes. Narrow trails provided us access to the Pagodas. Gazing out on the plains that literally prickled with stupas took my breath away. I was completely floored
by the vast beauty of this place. This was compounded by the fact that I really didn't have any expectations of what it would be like. That night we got treated to another blood-red sun down from the top of another massive stupa.

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