Myanmar: Plain of golden spires

A balloon hovers over Bagan. Photo / Creative Commons image by Flickr user Christopher Michel

On a hot-air balloon ride, Brett Atkinson gets to look down on Myanmar's temples from the heavens.

Resource consent obviously wasn't a big deal around central Myanmar a few centuries ago.

It's reckoned more than 4000 Buddhist temples were erected in a 230-year building frenzy on the plains of Bagan from the early 11th century. Brick, stone and wooden stupas - humble and ostentatious - arose at an average of one every two weeks, creating loads of work for local tradies, and transforming the human landscape of dusty lands bordering the fertile river valley of the Irrawaddy.

Mongol hordes from the north arrived in 1287 to disrupt this Grand Designs party, but despite years of neglect, looting, earthquakes and erosion, the remaining 2000 temples of Bagan are a singular monument to the drive of the kings of Myanmar from the 11th to 13th centuries. And in a new century, the 200,000 international visitors who visit Bagan annually - compared to more than two million at Angkor Wat in Cambodia - have contrasting ways to experience the poignant detail and immense scale of the 100sq km site.

Available for rent at seemingly every guesthouse, cafe and combination laundry/souvenir shop/hairdressers in the rapidly expanding tourist hubs of Nyaung U and New Bagan, e-bikes are the preferred option for independent travellers. Just 10,000 kyats (around $12.50) a day secures a pastel and plastic two-wheeler often resembling a psychedelic mash-up from Apple and Hello Kitty.

Cruise at top speed - actually still very gentle - like a Sons of Anarchy prospect, and the on-board battery might last three hours. Dial back the thrills to medium, and around five hours' mobility allows for exploration across a wide swathe of Bagan's stupa-studded vista. And, unlike the tour bus overkill at Angkor Wat, it's still relatively easy to find a temple to call your own.

With so many temples, a pre-departure e-bike game plan for Bagan's highlights is essential. Overlaid with manifold layers of gold leaf, a quartet of huge standing Buddhas fill the four spacious pavilions of the Ananda Pahto temple. In Gu Byauk Gyi and Abeyadana Phato, still-iridescent ancient frescoes are revealed only under modern torchlight, and options to observe one of Asia's great sunsets include Gawdawpalin and the popular Shwesandaw temple, usually packed with a Tower of Babel mix of international languages at dusk.

Beyond Bagan's heavy hitters, it's also easy to recharge on fresh roadside coconuts, and detour to more discreet temples looked after by local villagers and always housing the golden surprise of even more Buddha statues.

Bookending the popularity of sunset, sunrise is the best time to observe the scale of the Burmese kings' construction spree. Every morning, Bagan's diffuse pre-dawn light is illuminated with more than 20 hot-air balloons inflating with a fiery glow, and then slowly rising into the coolest air of the day.

Once aloft, Bagan's terracotta plains are revealed as a rolling sea of man-made peaks, and the whitewashed stupa atop Mt Popa fills a mountainous horizon. In the near distance the silvery trail of the Irrawaddy River flows south to Yangon and the Andaman Sea, and the rapidly rising tropical sun creates telltale shadows of the balloons as they drift past larger temples.

A few well-known stupas do reveal familiar profiles, but from 65m and in morning silence occasionally ambushed by the roar of the balloon's gas burner, the sheer number is compelling.

Larger temples highlight maroon-clad monks emerging from working monasteries to receive their early morning alms, and girls on bicycles weave a spidery path past squat brick temples on their way to school.

All the while, support teams follow in vintage wood-trimmed buses, weaving between a scrubby maze of villages and stupas for the inevitable post-ballooning conclusion of champagne breakfast in fields tilled by a bemused local farmer.

CHECKLIST

Getting there: Yangon in Myanmar can be reached on regular flights from the main Asian hubs. Domestic airlines linking to Nyaung U Airport near Bagan include Air Bagan, Myanmar Airways and Asian Wings.

Where to stay: The Blue Bird hotel in New Bagan has 24 spacious rooms.

Up and away: Balloons Over Bagan offers ballooning from October - March.

The writer experienced Bagan with the support of Balloons Over Bagan.