Within his golden palace hall,
Surrounded by his lords in state,
He sits serene.
But king’s delights, eddies small
On ocean’s face a moment seen,
Are but for life.
~An excerpt from the Death Song of Anantasuriya, Translated into English by R.F. Andrew St. John
A day after arriving in Myanmar, my friends and I found ourselves walking barefoot across dusty, polished stones towards a nearly millenium-old stone temple. We’d just arrived in Old Bagan, an ancient city renowned for the 2,200 temples that have survived there since the time of their construction in the 9th through the 13th centuries. Presently, we approached Htilominlo, the first of many temples we would get to visit over the next two days.
The air was singed with a not-too-unpleasant acrid haze. Our guide Htut had described the time of year as “smoke season,” and the extra atmosphere that the smoke provided washed everything in a golden-glow. It was as though someone had put an Instagram filter on the entire landscape. A pair of pigeons swept across the sky, silhouetted by the brilliant sunlight as they flew behind Htilominlo’s sikhara, or central spire. My eyes followed them until they disappeared behind the temple, and then it drifted down the spire and across the intricately adorned edifice of the ancient temple.
Among the grandest of Bagan’s many temples, Htilominlo’s towering form provided shade from the intense afternoon sunlight. Htut pointed out unique architectural features that have survived since the temple was built around 1211 AD. There was a row of original green, glazed tiles running the perimeter of the building, and the remnants of intricate plaster carvings still adorned much of the temple’s exterior. The plaster used to cover the whole surface of the building, but now its cracked surface reveals the carefully-stacked red brick underneath.
My eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the dim lighting when we followed Htut inside of the temple. When I could see the details of the temple’s inner chamber, my jaw dropped open. The tall walls and sloping ceilings were covered in Buddhist paintings, that had remained intact since the 11th century. Any area of the walls that still had its original plaster coating was completely covered in pigmented patterns and depictions of the Buddha. As we marveled at the artwork, Htut explained that the original painters used mirrors to reflect light through the temple’s windows and onto their work surface so they could see what they were doing.
Then he led us through a chamber off to the side of the large Buddha statue that dominated the room. We circumambulated the temple, passing through stone hallways and into three more large rooms with Buddha statues, each facing in one of the cardinal directions.
After completing our circuit of the temples interior, we went back outside and walked another large circle around the exterior. There was a stone wall surrounding Htilominlo, and beyond that, I could see the silhouettes of more temples dotting the landscape all the way to the horizon. I split my time between marveling at Htilominlo’s plaster carvings, and looking off into the distance as I counted temples and pagodas, growing ever more excited for all of the amazing sights we were sure to see during our stay in Bagan.
Eventually we came back to the entrance we’d started at, and it was time to move on to nearby Shwezigon Pagoda, a gilded stupa that was built in 1102 AD. Our driver dropped us off after a short ride in the van, and we approached Shwezigon through a long promenade lined with market stalls. We stopped at one particular booth where a man demonstrated how his wood carvings became magnetic when he charred them with a lighter. None of us could believe our eyes, and we kept asking him to do it again. Each time, he would shave a fresh piece of wood off of a block, char it, and then stick a magnet against it. The shred would instantly zip over to attach itself to the magnet. All four of us were confused as to how this would be possible, and I still don’t have an answer, although my gut tells me the wood must have been treated with something in order for the trick to work. In any case, we all got a kick out of it, and I was very tempted to buy a carving to take home, so if nothing else, it was a good sales tactic.
Still confused, we thanked the craftsman for his demonstration, and refocused on visiting Shwezigon Pagoda. When we finally entered the temple complex, the shining golden stupa commanded all of our attention. Like many of the other temples in Bagan, the stupa has undergone a lot of renovation due to damage from natural disasters over the centuries. Now it is in immaculate condition, with every gilded detail perfectly intact. In the waning afternoon light, the stupa looked liked something out of a folk story, too beautiful to exist in real life.
As we slowly circled the stupa, a woman approached our group and shyly asked Htut a question, gesturing back at her group of companions.
“She wants to know if they can take a picture with you,” Htut translated.
This wasn’t the first time we’d been asked for a photo since we arrived in Myanmar, and it wouldn’t be the last. Tourism in the region has been greatly diminished since the start of its civil conflict in 2021, and our party of American travelers was enough of an oddity to draw some attention. We happily agreed to take a photo with them, and through Htut, we learned that they were visiting Bagan from another region of Myanmar, because it is a major pilgrimage site for Burmese Buddhists. It was a pleasure to meet the group of women, who were all friendly and welcoming. Interactions like this were one of my favorite things about our time in Myanmar. We ended up meeting many kind people during our stay, and we loved that people were so willing to interact with us, despite the language barrier.
After saying goodbye to the women, we continued around the stupa, admiring its gleaming surface until we arrived back where we’d started.
It had taken us five hours to drive from Mandalay to Bagan that morning, so even though we’d only visited two sites so far, sunset was fast approaching. Sunrises and sunsets are the main event on a visit to Bagan, and we had major plans for our first one. Now that we’d seen the pagoda, we hurried back to the van to head to our next activity.
Our driver took us to a seemingly random, dusty street corner, where two horse-drawn carriages waited for us under a cluster of shade trees. Jared and Rachel climbed aboard one carriage, and Vince and I took the other. We waved to Htut as the carriage drivers steered the horses onto the dirt road. He would meet us at a designated sunset viewpoint at the end of our ride. In the meantime, we got to sit back and enjoy the views as our horses trotted through the village and out into the countryside that was dotted with hundreds of temples and bell-shaped pagodas.
I felt transported back in time as we jaunted along, kicking up clouds of dust in our wake. The temples that lined the roadside looked ethereal in the glow of golden hour, and I tried to imagine what life would have been like during the era of their creation, when Burmese Animism and Theravada Buddhism were first being integrated.
Just before sunset, our carriages pulled into a large parking lot that was filled with a surprising amount of vehicles and people. We’d only seen a handful of other tourists all day, but this sunset viewpoint was bustling with activity. Htut was there waiting for us, and he grabbed some group pictures of us in the carriages before we hopped down from them. Then I grabbed some pictures of the horse that had pulled us in front of another grand temple that loomed in the near distance.
When we all had the pictures we wanted, we followed Htut up the slope of a small hill where we would get a perfect view of the sunset. Until recently, visitors could climb the temples to watch the sunset, but that practice has been banned for safety and for preservation of the temples. Manmade sunset hills were erected to replace the tradition, and this one was already full of mostly local tourists looking out at a vast view. We grabbed a spot to watch the show, and settled in as the sun dipped towards the horizon.
It was a breathtaking sunset, made atmospheric by the ever-present haze in the air. The sky was cloudless and washed with shades of yellow, orange, and purple that melted into each other. The moment seemed interminable, and I wondered if it was just a feeling, or if sunsets somehow lasted longer in Myanmar. I’d had the same sensation the previous evening in Mandalay, and now earth seemed to be standing still once again, waiting on baited breath as the golden orb of the sun hung lazily in the sky.
Eventually the sun fell behind the distant mountains, but the colors in the sky remained. Even as we rode over to check into our hotel, the Thiripyitsaya Sanctuary Resort, the heavens still glowed pink. Htut said goodbye to us for the evening as a hotel employee led us out to a pair of spacious garden chalets where we would spend the next two nights. After dropping off my luggage, I went back outside to watch the remainder of the long sunset.
To end the evening, the four of us ordered dinner at the resort’s open-air restaurant. Afterwards, Jared and Vince took a swim in the resort’s pool, while I gazed out towards the Irrawaddy River. Now that it was getting dark out, it was far too cold for me to join them for a swim, and Rachel just hung her legs in the water from the side of the pool. It was a perfectly serene evening, but the next morning we would have to be up well before the sun. Our day was scheduled to begin with the activity we were all most excited for – a hot air balloon ride over the ancient temples of Bagan. So, we turned in relatively early so we could get plenty of sleep before the big day ahead of us!
You can find more details of this amazing destination on my YouTube channel!
