Bagan

Myanmar's enchanting temple town of Bagan is an age-old metropolis. In its heyday, it contained around 10,000 temples, monasteries, shrines, pagodas, and stupas. This place served as the capital of a significant kingdom during the 11th and the 13th centuries. Since then, natural calamities, negligence, and Mongol invasions have caused these holy places to degrade. There are just 2,000 temple remains left, which are dispersed across the horizon. While it is possible to walk inside the Bagan Archaeological Zone, it is better to view the overwhelming number of temples from above.

The religion dominated Bagan's culture. Bagan's religion was flexible, syncretic, and by norms of the time, unconventional. Theravada Buddhism coexisted alongside Mahayana Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism, several Hindu (Saivite, and Vaishana) schools, as well as indigenous animist (nat) traditions, during the Pyu period. Other traditions persisted throughout the Pagan period at levels never before seen, despite Theravada Buddhism progressively gaining supremacy thanks to royal funding beginning in the middle of the 11th century. Today, Bagan is a popular tourist destination in the developing tourism sector of the nation, which has long been the subject of several boycott efforts. According to several Burmese newspapers, the city's meager tourist infrastructure will need to swiftly grow even to keep up with a minor increase in tourism in the coming years.

Location: Myanmar