Magical Bagan – By traveller Gili

Magical Bagan – Gili

Bagan is a dream and my hands down favorite place that I visited anywhere. You can keep your Ankor Wats, Great Walls of China and Borobadours, this place is pure magic and like nothing you will ever see again.

I could have easily stayed another week on top of the 5 days I spent exploring the Pagoda-dotted city.

• Finding a Pagoda or Temple with a view for yourself and just chilling and talking politics with other random strangers, or whomever else you have met on the way.
• A random monastery we stumbled on with a secret staircase to climb for sunset which turns into darkness and stargazing whilst listening to the sound of monks somewhere in the distance.
• Dancing at sunrise, surrounded by hot air balloons to upbeat burmese music blasting from a monastery/school/somewhere, on the sandy pathways, no-one else around, sometimes being passed by a truck full of people heading to work, or a monk on the back of a motorbike, just Burmese normality surrounding you.

That’s what is still wonderful about Bagan, although it’s full of tourists, it feels big enough now for you to feel special and like it’s yours only. Even with the tourist hub of Nyaung U, normal life seems to just carry on around the temples and the tourists, locals are just getting on with it.