Over 3,000 monuments, a testament to Bagan as a former center of Buddhist spirituality and learning, are scattered by the plains of the Ayarwady River. As a World Heritage Site, Bagan stands alongside the other great Buddhist centers of Southeast Asia, comparable only to Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Framed on both sides by the great Ayarwady River, the main concentration of monuments is around the original city on the bend of the river. No two monuments are the same. All are highly original in design and conception.

Bagan cannot fail to move you. Ask any visitor who has witnessed the sun rise or set across these fields of glowing temples. The temples are now empty. Sacked by man or felled by nature, the great communities of chanting monks and reverberating bells have moved on.

In its place are calmness and peace, and a vision of wonder at how man was capable of creating such a vast city of spiritual monuments.