The Bagan Archaeological Zone stretches 26 sq miles across central Myanmar. Despite centuries of neglect, looting, erosion, regular earthquakes, including a massive one in 1975, not to mention dodgy restoration, this temple-studded plain remains a remarkably impressive and unforgettable vision.
In a 230-year building frenzy up until 1287 and the Mongol invasions, Bagan’s kings commissioned over 4000 Buddhist temples. These brick-and-stucco religious structures are all that remain of their grand city, since the wooden 11th- to 13th-century buildings have long gone.
Many restoration projects have resulted in a compromised archaeological site that can barely be described as ruined. Still, Bagan remains a wonder. Working temples such as Ananda Pahto give a sense of what the place was like at its zenith, while others conceal colourful murals and hidden stairways that lead to exterior platforms and jaw-dropping views across the plain.
1Sights
Plan your daily temple viewing around a dawn or dusk visit, building in a leisurely lunch/siesta/poolside lounging period from around 12.30pm to 4pm. Temperatures at dawn and dusk will be more pleasant and the light is better for photographs.
All foreign visitors to the Bagan Archaeological Zone are required to pay a US$20 entrance fee. If you arrive by boat or air, the fee will be collected at the river jetty or airport. If you come by bus, the fee is collected at a booth as you head into town. The fee is valid for a five-day period, but it’s unlikely you’ll be asked to pay again if you stay longer.
TOP BAGAN TEMPLES
Ananda Pahto One of the best-preserved and most revered of all the Bagan temples.
Dhammayangyi Pahto An absolute colossus, this red-brick temple is visible from all over Bagan.
Sulamani Pahto This late-period beauty is known as Crowning Jewel, and with good reason.
Pyathada Paya Super sunset (or sunrise) spot and typically less crowded.
Thatbyinnyu Pahto Named for omniscience, this is Bagan’s highest temple.
Old Bagan ပုဂံႃမို႔ေဟာင္း
At just over 1 mile this circuit within the old city walls is manageable on foot or by bicycle.
North of the Archaeological Museum (ေက်ာက္စာသမိုင္းျပတိုက္
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; Bagan-Nyaung U Rd; adult/child under 10yr K5000/free; 
h9am-4.30pm Tue-Sun), the 197ft-high Gawdawpalin Pahto (ေဂၚေတာ္ပလႅင္ပုထိုး
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) is one of Bagan’s most imposing temples. About 220yd south of here, a dirt road leads past Mimalaung Kyaung (မီးမေလာင္ေက်ာင္း
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) – note the chinthe, a half-lion, half-guardian deity – and the only remaining Hindu temple at Bagan, Nathlaung Kyaung (နတ္ေလွာင္ေက်ာင္း
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), to the 207ft-tall Thatbyinnyu Pahto (သဗၺၫုပုထိုး
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). Built in 1144, it has a square base, surrounded by diminishing terraces, rimmed with spires.
Another 220yd north of Thatbyinnyu is Shwegugyi (ေရႊဂူႀကီး
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), a temple dating from 1131 with lotus sikhara (Indian-style temple finial) atop and stucco carvings inside. Back on the main Nyaung U–Old Bagan Rd continue to the 9th-century Tharabar Gate (သရပါတံခါး
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), the former eastern entry to the walled city.
North Plain
Roughly 490yd east of Thatbyinnyu, the 170ft-high Ananda Pahto (အာနႏၵာပုထိုး
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), with its golden sikhara top and gilded spires, is probably Bagan’s top draw. Finished in 1105, the temple has giant teak Buddha images facing each of the four entranceways. On the full moon of the month of Pyatho (between mid-December and mid-January), a three-day paya festival attracts thousands of pilgrims.
Just northwest is Ananda Ok Kyaung (အာနႏၵာအုတ္ေက်ာင္း
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), with colourful murals detailing 18th-century life, some showing Portuguese traders. No photos allowed.
Midway between Old Bagan and Nyaung U, Upali Thein (ဥပါလိသိမ္
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) features large, brightly painted murals from the early 18th century. Across the road, the location for the terraced 490ft-high Htilominlo Pahto (ထီးလိုမင္းလိုပုထိုး
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) was picked in 1218 by King Nantaungmya, using a ‘leaning umbrella’. Just south of Anawrahta Rd, Buledi (ဗူးလယ္သီး
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) is a good sunrise/sunset viewing spot and useful for getting your bearings.
Central Plain
South of Anawrahta Rd, the 11th-century, five-terraced Shwesandaw Paya (ေရႊဆံေတာ္ဘုရား
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) is a graceful white pyramid-style pagoda with 360-degree views of Bagan’s temples. It’s packed for sunset, but pretty empty during the day. Note the original hti (decorated top of a stupa) lying to the south – it was toppled by a 1975 earthquake.
About 550yd east, monumental Dhammayangyi Pahto (ဓမၼရံႀကီးပုထိုး
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) has two encircling passageways, the inner one of which has been intentionally filled. It’s said that King Narathu, who commissioned the temple, was so cruel that the workers ruined it after his assassination in 1170.
About 880yd east, the broad two-storeyed 1181 Sulamani Pahto (စူဠာမဏိပုထိုး
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) is one of the area’s prettiest temples, with lush grounds and carved stucco. Just 165yd east, Thabeik Hmauk (သပိတ္ေမွာက္
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) looks like a mini Sulamani, but without the hawkers – and you can climb to the top. And at sunset, don’t miss the broad viewing platform at Pyathada Paya (ျပႆဒါးဘုရား
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), about half a mile southeast.
Around Myinkaba
Just north of Myinkaba, the 1274 Mingalazedi Paya (မဂၤလာေစတီဘုရား
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) has three receding terraces lined with 561 glazed tiles and tasty views of the nearby river and temples.
On the north edge of town, the 1113 Gubyaukgyi (ဂူေျပာက္ႀကီး
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) sees a lot of visitors thanks to its richly coloured interior paintings. In the village, the modern-looking 1059 Manuha Paya (မႏူဟာဘုရား
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) was named for the Mon king who was held captive here. Note the four giant buddha images that are seemingly too large for the enclosure, symbolic of Manuha’s discontent with his prison life. Stairs at the rear lead above the reclining Buddha.
Just south, Nan Paya (နန္းဘုရား
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), from the same era, is a cave-style shrine; Nan Paya was possibly once Hindu, as suggested by the three-faced Brahma situated on the pillars.
About 550yd south of Myinkaba, the 11th-century Abeyadana Pahto (အပါယ္ရတနာပုထိုး
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) was likely to have been commissioned by King Kyanzittha’s Bengali wife and features original frescoes. Across the road, Nagayon (နဂါးရံု
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) has some tight stairs leading up to the roof. Its corn-cob sikhara (finial) was possibly a prototype for Ananda.
South Plain
About 1¾ miles east of New Bagan, the 1196 Dhammayazika Paya (ဓမၼရာဇိကဘုရား
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) is unusual for its five-sided design. It’s very well tended with lush grounds and lavish attention from worshippers. A dirt road leads a mile north to Dhammayangyi.
An excellent cluster of sites is about 2 miles east. North of the road, Tayok Pye Paya (တရုတ္ေျပးဘုရား
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) has good westward views of Bagan. To the south, 13th-century Payathonzu (ဘုရားသံုးဆူ
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), a small complex of three interconnected shrines, draws visitors to its murals.
About 220yd north, Nandamannya Pahto (နႏၵပညာပုထိုး
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), from the same period, features the ‘temptation of Mura’ murals – in the form of topless women reaping no response from a meditating buddha. It’s often locked; ask at Payathonzu for the ‘key master’. Just behind, Kyat Kan Kyaung (
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) has been a cave-style monastery for nearly 1000 years.
Nyaung U ေညာင္ဦး
The gilded bell of 1102 Shwezigon Paya (ေရႊစည္းခံုဘုရား
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) is considered by many to be the prototype for many Burmese pagodas. A yellow compound on the east side (called ‘37 Nats’ in English) features figures of each of the animist spirits.
8Getting There & Away
Most travel services operate from Nyaung U. Ask at Ever Sky Information Service or your guesthouse about air tickets or hiring a share taxi.
Air
Nyaung U Airport is about 2 miles southeast of the market. Travel agencies often have cheaper tickets than the airline offices. Try Seven Diamond (
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; 
%061-61184; www.sevendiamondtravels.com; Main Rd; h9am-8pm) on Nyaung U–Bagan Rd.
Boat
Boats to Mandalay go from either Nyaung U or Old Bagan, depending on water levels. The Nyaung U jetty is about half a mile northeast of the market.
During low season (April to September) the government-run IWT ferry (aka 'slow boat') is the only boat that runs to Mandalay, a two-day journey with an overnight stop near Pakokku. Private boats include Malikha and Nmai Hka. They do the trip in 10 to 12 hours.
At the time of writing there were no southbound passenger ferries operating to Magwe or Pyay.
If open (unlikely!), the IWT office, about 275yd inland from the jetty, sells tickets. Alternatively book a ticket through your hotel or a travel agency, who can also sell tickets for the private boats .
Bus
Bagan's new main bus station is around 3 miles south of Nyaung U, close to the train station. Pick-ups charge K3000 per person to/from Nyaung U. During peak season it’s wise to book bus tickets for Mandalay, Taunggyi (for Inle Lake) and Yangon in advance.
Train
The Bagan train station is about 2½ miles southeast of Nyaung U. The shop Blue Sea (
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; %061-60949; Bagan-Nyaung U Rd) sells tickets plus a K2000 commission.
TRANSPORT FROM BAGAN
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To Yangon
|
Time
|
Cost
|
Departures
|
| Air |
70min |
US$126 |
frequent |
| Bus |
9hr |
K13,000-18,000 |
frequent |
| Car |
9hr |
K150,000 |
charter |
| Train |
16hr |
upper class/sleeper K6000/16,500 |
daily |
|
To Mandalay
|
Time
|
Cost
|
Departures
|
| Air |
30min |
US$60-65 |
frequent |
| Boat (slow) |
2 days |
US$15 |
2 weekly |
| Boat (fast) |
10-12hr |
US$42 |
daily Oct-Mar |
| Bus |
6-7hr |
K8000-9500 |
frequent |
| Car |
4-5hr |
K130,000 |
charter |
| Train |
8hr |
ordinary/upper class K1100/1800 |
daily |
a
W). A good place to eat is Hla Hla Hnan (
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; no roman-script sign, Neik Ban St; dishes from K400; 
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