Bagan is, hands down, our favorite stop on the trip so far. Located about 8 hours by bus northwest of Yangon, it’s a region with over 2,000 temples concentrated in a small area. The highlight of any trip to Bagan is exploring as many temples as possible, especially the ones with second and third stories that offer panoramic views of the thousands of temples dotting the skyline.

We arrived in Bagan just in time for dinner on December 31st and quickly decided that we would prioritize seeing the first sunrise of 2017 over staying awake to ring in the New Year at the stroke of midnight. True to our mission, we were soundly asleep by 10:30pm on New Years Eve with our alarms set for 4:30am so we could stake out a good sunrise spot. For our first temple experience, we did some research and went to a temple another blogger said they loved and saw very few people visiting. Apparently it was a pretty popular blog because while there were many less people than the well-known “sunrise temple” we could see a few hundred yards away, we still counted over 100 early morning risers on the second story overlook at the “secret temple” with us. Regardless, it was an amazing morning and a great way to kick off both 2017 and our few days in Bagan.

Over the next three days we saw all kinds of temples. We stopped by several of the most popular ones which are well-known for a reason: lots are big, beautiful, well maintained and offer some of the best views of the unique Bagan landscape. However, as our time went on we became obsessed with finding temples with few to no other visitors and made it our mission to find as many off the beaten path temples as possible. Our top strategies were to veer off on tiny dirt paths and to avoid anything with a tour bus out front. We were rewarded time and time again with temples literally all to ourselves.

Our two favorite temples of our time in Bagan were Sinbyushin Monastic Complex and Ta Wet Hpaya Temple. The first, Sinbyushin, we stumbled upon randomly during the day.  While wandering around, we discovered a really tiny staircase leading to a second story viewing area. Jackpot! We didn’t see anyone else when we visited in the afternoon so we decided to return in the evening and try our luck at a crowd-free sunset. We couldn’t believe our great fortune when we had the place to ourselves at the most popular time of day in Bagan!

We read about Ta Wet Hpaya, our second favorite temple, on another blog and were skeptical after our first “secret temple” experience but found that this one was still pretty undiscovered! We swung by during the day and again went back for sunset where we were with only about 10 other people on a giant temple. It was the most magical sunset we’ve ever seen. Who knew the sky could turn so orange!

Our third place temple award would go to a small pagoda next to Bulethi temple (not sure of the name). We came here for both sunrise and sunset and loved it because it’s small and has several tiers that make for awesome theater-style seating. Everyone gets a good view!

Part of what made Bagan so fun was riding around on e-bikes (electric scooters). For about $6 USD per person per day, we were able to rent two bikes and zip around to temples all over the region. We had a blast on them! If you read our Taiwan post, you’ll know I was skeptical about them to start but I got used to it quickly in Bagan and loved it!

Began is truly a magical place that we would recommend everyone visit as soon as possible. We’ve heard over and over again that tourism is booming in Myanmar. It’s only been a few years since tourists have been allowed in the country, so there still aren’t as many visitors as in the neighboring Southeast Asian countries… yet. As tourism continues to grow in Myanmar we can only imagine how different it, and especially Bagan, will become. We enjoyed nearly unrestricted access to temples and were able to escape the crowds and explore many sites without seeing a single soul which was one of the things that made it so special. Think about adding it to your travel bucket list and getting there soon!