Bagan Ancient Temples & Sights

The temples of Bagan! When I first started re-searching Myanmar on the web these temples came up over and over again. They were stunning and I'd always hoped we visit the city of Bagan. Well, sure enough, one of our co-teachers invited us with her church and off we went! 

I've written about Bagan Golden Palace  and the Ministries in Bagan but today I wanted to share more about the palaces and other unique sights we saw. But first I need to tell you how we got to Bagan. 

Our friend picked us up in the early evening so we could take a long taxi ride to the bus station. When I say bus station this is not the bus station you or I ever picture in our mind. It is more like a neighborhood with 50 small businesses who each own a bus and they park wherever they want. On top of that you need to imagine busses and cars going around in a frenzy like an ant pile who just got stepped on. It was crazy but our friends knew exactly where to go! 

Our bus left around 8 in the evening and it was an overnight ride. I normally can sleep like a champion on buses but I just couldn't on this one! They even gave us a blanket but sleep wasn't happening for me. We arrived at Bagan around 5am and then had to wait at the bus station there for a taxi to get us to take us into Bagan. 

The taxi came and our friends then had to be awesome again and find us a hotel to stay at. By law, we weren't allowed to stay at the boarding school where everyone else was at but finding a hotel was no easy task either. To house foreigners the hotel has to be licensed specifically for that. One hotel said they had vacancy but when we got out of the car they declined our stay because we were foreigners.  ha! Forty five minutes later our friends found us a place to stay. We slept for one hour and then went to the boarding house to help over there. 

The second night we got much better sleep and the next day we got to sight see. You all, this city is dreamy and ancient. It had an ancient charm to it and I loved visiting it. 

This is one of the largest temples in the area and I hate to tell you but I forgot the name. I couldn't believe how huge the temple was and how intricately designed it was. The temples are from the 11th to 13th century and I was amazed to see how much of them are preserved. 

All around the temple are many shopping stalls. We purchased a few things but mostly just enjoyed the sights. 

I thought the inside was the prettiest part.

Bagan also has a huge museum full of ancient artifacts. It was interesting to see but you couldn't take any pictures inside. The outside though ... you could for sure snap away and the building itself was rather beautiful. 

Have I told you monks are all over in Myanmar? We see many of them every day. The ones wearing saffron are from Myanmar and the ones wearing orange are from Thailand. I hope to share more about that part of the culture here one day. 

Here are a few pictures of some of the other things we saw there. 

Now I'm going to be super honest: as much as I think the temples are beautiful I have such mixed feelings about visiting them. It's neat to see the creativity that God gives people but to think that all these were built for Buddha is hard to see. I hope to share a full post on that later but it won't be until I leave Myanmar. Either way I am glad we got to see a really neat part of this country. 

What do you think of the temples? 

Would you visit somewhere like this?