In the world, there’s a handful of places you must visit before you die. The Great Wall, The Pyramids, Angkorwat, Machu Pichhu, The Playboy Mansion Grotto, etc. Yet there is one dusty field full of relics that deserves to be on the list that most people have never even seen a postcard of.

About an hour from Rangoon by turboprop, Bagan sits right on the Ayeyarwady river in central Burma. It’s a dusty, sandy desolate place that makes you wonder why the hell anyone would even go there. Well it’s because it probably has the highest concentration of Buddhist temples per square kilometer than anywhere else on the planet. Scattered across the vast desert plain are thousands of mostly abandoned temples like McMansions in America’s suburbs. At some point the Buddhists must have hit some kind of housing bubble, followed by a credit crisis and deep recession thanks to the media giving non-stop attention to doomsayers predicting the sky falling out thus creating a self fulfilling prophecy and one kick ass playground.

A demon water spout used to scare away hippies and other undesirables

The area is divided into 3 main towns. The airport you fly into is actually in Nyaung-oo. The more expensive and luxury hotels are in Old Bagan (where we stayed). They are within walking distance of the temples, but absolutely nothing else. Fact of the matter is that no one walks around to the temples, they’re way too spread out, and it’s too hot. There is also New Bagan, which is farther away from everything, but has some small cafes, places to eat, and some really cheap guesthouses. If you go, stay in Nyaung-oo. It has plenty of internet cafes, restaurants and bars, plus it’s close proximity to the airport makes it even more convenient. If you use Franklin to light your Cubans, and Jefferson in lieu of TP, then by all means stay in New Bagan and hire a car to take you around to the temples.

This giant gold pagoda is actually not a giant bell

Transport around town can be done by bike, horse cart, taxi, and bus. If you speak Chinese you might run into some tourists from Yunnan and hitch a ride in the back of their pickup truck, while touring around all the temples and getting free history lessons. That was our preferred mode of travel. Another method that every single human will insist is impossible is renting a motorcycle/scooter. Apparently the police don’t allow foreigners to use them without special permit, but it seems this doesn’t matter if the person you are renting them from has the right connections (or forms of payment). If you want, head to New Bagan and talk to the owners of the guesthouses there, they should point you in the right direction. The best experience I had was cruising at 100km/h past sweaty faced white guys pedaling their asses off in the sunshine. The Buses are about 300 kyat from one town to the next, and consist of small flatbed trucks that have wooden planks in the back for benches, and metallic roofs covering the bed for people to climb up onto. Be warned that if a jackhammer were a mode of transportation, it wouldn’t be too far from the comfort level of the buses.

A regular, but very delicious Burmese meal consisting of a number of different meats and pickled vegetables

Bike is a decent way to get around if you’re looking to shed some of that weight you’re not gaining from all that delicious Burmese food you’re afraid to try. An important warning however, if by chance you are heading back to Old or New Bagan from Nyaung Oo at night, take the main road, not Anawrahta Road. Although Anawrahta Rd. seems like the better choice because it is generally not used much at all, and it has street lights, those lights turn off at about 10:30pm. We found this out the hard way half way home. It wouldn’t have been a problem anywhere else, but Burmese people have evolved from their environment and possess natural nightvision, and often don’t bother to turn on their headlights even though it’s impossible to see anything. Luckily we made it back without getting flattened, but wrong turns into the twilight were plentiful.

The temples themselves are often deserted with the exception of some random farmers hanging around the outside, or kids reciting memorized English history of the temple they are at. Without forgetting Buddha’s foot fancy, taking off our shoes gave us the freedom to explore the temples as much as we could gain access to. Often we could climb up to the second or third level of the temple through hidden passageways. Within the temples there’s sometimes amazing murals that remind of hieroglyphics or posters in some stoner’s bedroom. They are not protected in anyway and within time I’m sure the oils from people’s grubby meat hooks will eventually destroy them, just like everything else of value in this country. Even though sunsets are hella clichéd, we still caught one decent one after a failed attempt to find a temple we could climb up into. Even though we were stranded in the middle of some dusty field that made riding our 50’s era bicycles rather futile, there was something unreal about it that bitch smacked most other sunsets black out. I pray someone could come along and do the same to the ruling Junta, so that this amazing place might have a chance at kicking it for another 1000 years.

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