Page 19 - Thailand Myanmar 20 Day Sample

Spend the day exploring this incredible city and visit the inside of some of Bagan’s more significant pagodas. Bagan (Nyaung U) is the seat of the 1st Myanmar Empire founded by King Anawrahta in mid 11 century A.D. Although legends say that there were supposed to be more than four hundred thousand pagodas at Bagan there are now approximately 2000 pagodas situated in an area about 16 miles square and under the care of the Archaeological Department. Many of the pagodas are in ruins but inside these structures beautiful wall paintings are still very much fresh as if painted only yesterday. Bagan has changed very little in the past century. It remains Myanmar's deserted capital on the Irrawaddy, thickly studded with pagodas of all sizes and shapes. It is a graveyard of medieval Burmese culture. There is nowhere a sight so striking as the view across the plain of Bagan, one red-brick pagoda after another, with an occasional white spire reaching heavenward, encasing a large area on the dusty eastern shore of the greatest river in Burma. Visit Nyaung-U farmer’s market and Ananda Temple, considered the masterpiece of Mon architecture. The Ananda Temple is most representative of Early Period Bagan architecture. The Ananda Temple’s exterior magnificence and wondrous interior spaces attract pilgrims and tourists from all over. Continue to Shwezigon Pagoda (golden stupa). It is one of Myanmar's most venerated since it enshrines a cornucopia of Buddha relics, including the Buddha's frontlet bone obtained by King Anawrahta, his collarbone from Sri Kshetra, and a duplicate of the Tooth of Kandy from Sri Lanka. Anawrahta began construction of this temple to fuse indigenous nat worship with his new-found faith. The project was finished by subsequent kings after Anawrahta was gored to death by a mad bull in 1077. Shwezigon Pagoda is also the first major monument built in Burmese, rather than the earlier Mon style, and the first pagoda to have nat images allowed within its precincts. The Shwezigon was a prototype for many later Burmese stupas.