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on 23 Mar 2014
Travel

Colorless Bagan

3 Minute Read

This post was originally published at Light Travelers, the site and blog of the photo collective I’m proudly a part of. 

Arrived at Bagan with my mind filled with cliches and pretty images, lovely colors of iconic sunsets and ethereal balloons floating above the temples, an image almost too unreal to be true.

Found no breathtaking sunsets or hot-air balloons, a direct result of traveling in the middle of rainy season. In fact not having to find any of those probably was the reason for going in that time of the year. Bagan is in a delicate balance, on one hand it’s a glorious landmark, the remains of an ancient capital where only the temples survived, not a handful but more than two thousand temples, all together become one of the most distinct man-made landscapes in Asia.

Shwesandaw Paya, the "sunset pagoda"
NIKON D300S (13mm, f/4.5, 1/1600 sec, ISO100)
Shwesandaw Paya, the “sunset pagoda”

 

NIKON D90 (85mm, f/7.1, 1/400 sec, ISO100)
The plains around Bagan temples

 

But on the other hand it’s a rural area, in many ways like any other at Myanmar, where people worship the same temples tourists climb while searching the best sunset view, or plow the plains as far as the eye can see at the top of the same temples.

Children outside New Bagan while the mother is plowing the field
NIKON D300S (16mm, f/7.1, 1/40 sec, ISO400)
Children outside New Bagan while the mother is plowing the field

 

Reclining Buddha statue at Shwesandaw Paya
NIKON D300S (13mm, f/4.5, 1/20 sec, ISO1600)
Reclining Buddha statue at Shwesandaw Paya

 

Plowed field
NIKON D300S (12mm, f/9, 1/125 sec, ISO100)
Plowed field

See the full series on my photo archive

Tags: Asia, Bagan, Burma, essay, Myanmar
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Recent Posts

  • …And so did we 6 Nov 2022
  • Young Men’s Festival of Grijó de Parada 28 Dec 2021
  • No Man’s Land 6 Oct 2021

More Related Photos

Myanmar

My passion for photography is driven by my passion for travel, either in remote locations or discovering hidden places in my country or my hometown, to discover who lives there, and all photos reflect my perspective from those wanderings.

Find more about myself, read the blog posts with my updates, take a look at my selected galleries or browse my archive with all my photos.

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