Reflecting on the Scale of Bagan

The Land of Temples, Pagodas and Stupas

Eric Floresca
4 min readMar 21, 2015

When I first got to Southeast Asia I kept on hearing about Burma aka Myanmar. It had just opened up in the last few years after the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi had ended and she made her way into public life.

The way Burma was explained to me was that it was similar to what Thailand was like 20–30 years ago. Having experienced Thailand already I wondered how long would it take before the people of Burma would become cynical as much as they were appreciative of what tourism brings.

The reason to go Burma are plenty, to see a country transform, almost day by day before your very eyes before it just becomes another stop on the banana trail.

Then there is Bagan, while Angkor Wat impresses because of its grandeur, then Bagan does the same because of the sheer scale and volume of stupas, temples and pagodas that dot the landscape.

Coming from Yangon you arrive in Bagan in the black of night and need to take a tuk tuk into town. Once you get into town you have to pay a $20 US dollar fee for admission or 21,000 kyat.

I’ve heard that some people have found ways around paying the fee by walking from the bus station into Nyaung-U and just avoiding the booth setup on the road (as well as the other checkpoints) from the bus station.

In my few days in Bagan I was never asked once for proof of payment at any of the large most well known sites in the area. Old Bagan is situated west of Nyaung-U, with New Bagan being just South of Old Bagan.

The most dominate of the main temples are situated in Old Bagan and it its easy to rent bicycle for just 1000 kyat and wander the area either by the main road or the dirt paths that lead to any number of temples, pagodas and or stupas throughout the area.

When I went to Bagan you couldn’t rent a scooter, the closest you could get was renting a electric bike while was like a scooter but with an even worse motor. I found a bicycle a much better ride and faster than one of those electric bikes.

While you should definitely visit the likes of That Byin Nyu and the other large Buddhist temples, my favorite time was just wandering around at day break when you could see the hot air balloons taking flight in the golden glow of the rising sun.

I got to Bagan before sun rise and rented a bike to start wandering the area as soon as I could. While there is nothing like the immensity of Dahmmayan Gyi Phaya it was finding a small 2 level temple before morning that was my most sublime moment, where you were high enough to get that spectacular view but were alone or close to it instead of being surrounded by the sometimes overwhelming tourist hoards.

It was meeting the caretaker of a small temple, who was selling artwork inspired by the immensity of Bagan, talking to them and sometimes just sitting want watching the hot air balloons glide through the air until the last one landed that made me realize that it wasn’t the huge temples that left the greatest impression but the small ones that did.

It was feeling like if only for a moment, this place, this view and this experience was yours. Sometimes it was taking a book and reading a page in the shadow of a small monument, others it finding shade by a lone stupa from a relentless sun to just meeting people who were racing to capture the immensity of the land of temples before the sun had climbed the night sky to turn it into day.

I will not forget what I saw, who I met and the wonder that the scale of Bagan’s archaeological zone provided me on those cool December days. The density and commitment to the Buddhist faith that still permeates Mynamar was evident in the 11th and 12 centuries.

It is said that once there were more than 13,000 temples and pagodas in this 42 square KM area, with more than 2200 remaining the scale still boggles the mind and makes me appreciate and be humbled in the face of faith, belief and human ingenuity.

It impossible to see every temple in Bagan but just by being there you can feel the reverence that Burma’s people have for what it means, how it resonates today and will hopefully resonate for decades to come as Burma and her people move into a rise of a new beginning where the possibilities are as endless as Bagan’s temples are upon first sight.

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Eric Floresca
Eric Floresca

Written by Eric Floresca

Passionate about muay thai and words with a wanderlust. I write here for me, thoughts into the void even if the echo only has a small reach, that can be enough.

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