vaga #3/4 Bagan a

PART IV

This sunset photo doesn't look sharp because for some reason, and many more will be the same, the air is always slightly hazy and damp. And that is why the sunsets, here are very famous ... you see the round, giant and red sun every day.

Bagan, "valley of the thousand temples" and not only one thousand, but many thousands of temples ........... a thing beyond fiction.

It is impossible to cover it completely, nor get a photo that represents its magnitude, or my experience, it is unforgettable

I just wanted to show the GROUP that I was not exaggerating. That there were thousands of temples, thousands 4,446. WATCH all in 14 km x 8 km, all those temples. It was impossible and  I have photos of 1% of them, I took about 700 photos and I will pass them on, no more than 30 in two parts. The names of the temples are impossible for me to know, and I only dedicated myself to looking and feeling the emotions. The story is in the next chapter, don't panic, it will be very short.

Golden domes, heavily painted white, others deteriorated, others crooked, others made of bricks, concaves, converse and their most diverse mixtures between both forms, I would say that not one is the same as the other. Some are majestic and some are very modest. About seven of the great ones are very active and perfect and with a permanent line of Burmese pilgrims coming to pay their respects and pray and spend the day in them. The others abandoned, already in the middle of collapsing.

They are distributed in a disorderly fashion, it is a labyrinth in every sense of the word ........ they said that it is almost impossible to visit them all unless you have a lot of time but in the labyrinth ...... difficult, unless one is an anthropologist with a plan in hand then perhaps you could. There are those that are seen between bushes or those that are seen in the arid terrain of the reddish earth and the dryness of the landscape is overwhelming with a devastating heat

The people live in their huts, very precariously balanced among the pagodas and stupas,the huts are quite like shacks there is a lot of garbage, which is disappointing. I had arrived in a dry season,

The haze always accompanies the heat, and acts as a diffuser

GREAT THEME: In the 1975 earthquake, more than a thousand temples were destroyed and many were left half-standing that is why the photo shown above in marble, appears to have been, repaired but it has taken more than 3 decades to begin their reconstruction. The government was not interested, there was no tourism ....... Because it was a dictatorship and the country was intentionally closed, so there was no interest in repairing them until they re-opened the country. The repair work was monumental when finally, the government decided to rebuild under pressure from all sides and they did so, in a bad way ... they did the reconstruction work too quickly and in a bad way,  they started doing it with reinforced cement. ignoring the original materials and leaving them all with a similar facade ..... it was a great fight with the historians, but it was a dictatorship and there was no other choice ......... It is a very poor country and there are no museums or Universities to help them, or foreign aid to get involved. The country was isolated from the world until a decade and a half ago .......... apparently things have already changed radically, with the arrival of international aid, the new reconstruction keeps their original materials and designs are being respected .....

Here is an example of a small temple without any shine, there are about 3,000 that are close to collapsing, but some are active, the locals use it and take care of it, fresh flowers, incense and they care for it in its terrible conditions, they put bars on it at night so that it isn’t desecrated, so the locals are interested in keeping their niches on a smaller scale

When I made the booking I saw that they offered a hotel with a view of the pagodas ....................... YES, to sleep amongst the pagodas ...!!!!! ..plop !!!!! I would not miss it for anything in the world ..... it was a hotel more high-priced than my budget, but there was no doubt about not taking it ........it was also out of season, prices had dropped and I would be practically alone ........ I mean paradise.

In the first photo, the white building behind is my super hotel, the other photo, taken from my bed ... !!!! The photo that I took with a timer, the way Sofi taught me, well, after 20 attempts, it finally worked hahahaha this is one of those photos of me that I have to have because it was not to be believed  ............ ..................... I treated myself to a  life of luxury ............ that pool .. !!! how can  I explain ..... it helped me to cope with the terrible heat. (40 degrees in the shade) Anecdote; I arrived at that hotel, that for me was a luxury in that micro-van, almost embarrassing and I went out on horseback hahahaha

Anecdote of the heat,  I washed a dress and put it out to dry on my terrace, I am exaggerating a bit,  but I went to brush my teeth and it was dry by the time I got back........ hahaha

sunset from my terrace and a picture of the damage caused by the earthquake

I finish with this picture, taken at night, as all my photos taken at night are bad but that's how the stupa was, (in the future I will explain the difference between a stupa and a pagoda), from my terrace at night .... magic, mystical and surreal, at least for me