Bagan (Myanmar)

Bagan, the treasure of Myanmar, or perhaps even of the entire Asian continent is an ancient city in the middle of the country. It is home to the largest and most beautiful concentration of pagodas, temples and stupas dispersed over green and yellow plains we have ever seen.

What to do?

Climb on a pagoda to watch sunset

We flew to Bagan from Mandalay in the dark of the night, leaving one of the most amazing spectacles unfolded before our eyes for the next morning. We rented a couple of e-bikes and rose at down equipped with a map and a flashlight. We drove to a pagoda near to our hotel, climbed to the top and waited for sunrise, with only a handful of other tourists. At 6.20 am sharp, the first rays of sunshine appeared illuminating the plains and thousands of terracotta coloured pagodas sticking out of the horizon. As if a signal had been given, exactly one minute later more than 50 hot air balloons starting rising from the morning mists, soaring above the pointed landscape. It was an ab-so-lu-te-ly breath-taking experience – which we got addicted to and repeated every morning for the next 3 days, even though it was not an easy task to get Camille up and running at that time of the day.

Cruise around the temples on a e-bike

We spent our days riding through the endless number of pagodas, and climbing to the top of the ones that are still open for tourists. The colours of this insane scenery is constantly changing, so each time we were rewarded with a different view. We hunted down the best pagodas for watching sunrise and sunset and returned lizzarding around the freshness of our pool during the hot midday hours.

Bagan is one of the most impressive testament of religious devotion, and we cannot begin to imagine the work that must have gone into building the more than 10,000 religious structures scattered around the plains (of which only 3,800 remain today). It’s our favourite so far and should be on everyone’s bucketlist!

Where to sleep?

• Sakura Inn (this hotel is actually inside the compound of the 5* luxury Thiripyitsaya Sanctuary resort. It’s an amazing deal because you get to enjoy all the facilities of the resort at an affordable price!)