4 Cool Things To Do in Bagan

     Bagan is an ancient city of the Kingdom of Pagan (now called Myanmar), whereas today 2200 temples and pagodas still survive. We visited it during our cultural immersion trip in our Southeast Asian class. Here are the four cool things you can do in Bagan.

1.) Wear a Longyi! Longyi is a sheet of cloth widely worn by Burmese men. With the scorching heat of summer, these are better worn instead of trousers. You can always fan the cloth to cool your inside. I personally tried it myself and below picture is a souvenir.

2.) Put Thanaka on your face! Thanaka is a cosmetic paste that they use as a skin coolant against sun’s heat. They normally put it creatively on their face. In below pictures, I had my cheek with the sun symbol and a peace-sign symbol using thanaka. Further below, are mother-and-child locals, a woman vendor, and a boy painter who all wear thanaka.

3.) Bike around the Bagan temples Look how magazine-like your pictures are– if you will have the temples as your background. You can coordinate with your hotel to hire for that bicycle.

4.) Climb atop one of the Bagan temples and watch the sunrise/sunset! But please be an early bird as many tourists would do the same. And you have to do this trip as soon as possible as the Myanmar government is planning to restrict access on climbing these temples- for the sake of protecting its heritage. With the sunrise, hot air balloons will also appear in front.

Other pictures from Bagan: