TravelsWithLobo's video: BAGAN - MYANMAR S NO 1 ATTRACTION - WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

MYANMAR - 10-DAY FIRST TIME EXPLORER - BAGAN - DAY 3 - EPISODE 1 Asia 2020 - Travel Bucket List ...TRAVELS WITH LOBO 10 Days makes for a very compact schedule so, after two full days of exciting sightseeing in Yangon we move on to Bagan - the no. 1 tourist attraction in Myanmar. In this vlog I share our experiences in getting there and also the background information we did not have at the time. So I call this episode MYANMAR BASICS that will hopefully be helpful to anyone planning to go to Bagan. Bagan is noted for its many pagodas, temples and stupas. It is stunning to read that even today 2229 temples and pagodas remain. Many of these damaged pagodas underwent restorations in the 1990s by the military government, which sought to make Bagan an international tourist destination. Bagan is an ancient city and a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the Mandalay Region of Myanmar.] From the 9th to 13th centuries, the city was the capital of the Pagan Kingdom, the first kingdom that unified the regions that would later constitute modern Myanmar. During the kingdom's height between the 11th and 13th centuries, 4,446 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries were constructed in the Bagan plains alone, of which the remains of 3,822 temples and pagodas still survive to the present day. According to the Burmese chronicles, Bagan was founded in the second century AD, and fortified in 849 AD by King Pyinbya, 34th successor of the founder of early Bagan.[5] Mainstream scholarship however holds that Bagan was founded in the mid-to-late 9th century by the Mranma (Burmans), who had recently entered the Irrawaddy valley from the Nanzhao Kingdom. It was among several competing Pyu city-states until the late 10th century when the Burman settlement grew in authority and grandeur.[6] The culture of Bagan was dominated by religion. The religion of Bagan was fluid, syncretic and by later standards, unorthodox. It was largely a continuation of religious trends in the Pyu era where Theravada Buddhism co-existed with Mahayana Buddhism, Tantric Buddhism, various Hindu (Saivite, and Vaishana) schools as well as native animist (nat) traditions. While the royal patronage of Theravada Buddhism since the mid-11th century had enabled the Buddhist school to gradually gain primacy, other traditions continued to thrive throughout the Pagan period to degrees later unseen.[8] The Pagan Empire collapsed in 1287 due to repeated Mongol invasions (1277–1301). Recent research shows that Mongol armies may not have reached Bagan itself, and that even if they did, the damage they inflicted was probably minimal.[9] However, the damage had already been done. The city, once home to some 50,000 to 200,000 people, had been reduced to a small town, never to regain its preeminence. The city formally ceased to be the capital of Burma in December 1297 when the Myinsaing Kingdom became the new power in Upper Burma. Bagan survived into the 15th century as a human settlement,[12] and as a pilgrimage destination throughout the imperial period. A smaller number of "new and impressive" religious monuments still went up to the mid-15th century but afterward, new temple constructions slowed to a trickle with fewer than 200 temples built between the 15th and 20th centuries.[7] The old capital remained a pilgrimage destination but pilgrimage was focused only on "a score or so" most prominent temples out of the thousands such as the Ananda, the Shwezigon, the Sulamani, the Htilominlo, the Dhammayazika, and a few other temples along an ancient road. The rest—thousands of less famous, out-of-the-way temples—fell into disrepair, and most did not survive the test of time.[7] Bagan today is a main tourist destination in the country's nascent tourism industry, which has long been the target of various boycott campaigns. The majority of over 300,000 international tourists to the country in 2011 are believed to have also visited Bagan.[citation needed] Several Burmese publications note that the city's small tourism infrastructure will have to expand rapidly even to meet a modest pickup in tourism in the following years. On 24 August 2016, a major earthquake hit central Burma and again did major damage in Bagan; this time almost 400 temples were destroyed. On 6 July 2019, Bagan was officially inscribed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, after 24 years since the military government first nominated the city in 1995, during the 43rd session of the World Heritage Committee.[19] This makes Bagan the second World Heritage Site in Myanmar, after the Ancient Cities of Pyu. As part of the criteria for the inscription of Bagan, the government of Myanmar has pledged to relocate existing hotels in the archaeological zone to a dedicated hotel zone by 2028.[20]