Myanmar: Bagan Day 5

Yesterday was a big day because we were in Bagan famous for it's history and 2,400 temples. This is just half the number that were here before a major earhquake in the 1970's. Our group began with a visit to the local market. Here we walked through a huge array of locally grown vegetables, spices, chicken, pork and fish. The fish were most notable for the HUGE catfish which drooped off either side of the large scales being used to weigh them. There was quite a variety of fish all caught in the Irrawaddy and some pond bred fish and prawns.
From there we wandered through the fabrics section with very little pressure to buy. However once an interest was shown the stall holder did their utmost to produce something that met our requirements.
Then began a finely coordinated visit to four different pagodas which had been chosen to display particular features of the 11th to 13th Century architectural style. This region has been settled since the 2nd Century because it is a slightly elevated plateau on a stable limestone base. The 10 hundreds began a particularly stable period with the unification of 19 villages into a city state. From there it developed peacefully for three  hundred years until invasion by the Mon. This is my rough recall of the information from the efforts of our guides to educate us.
The style of the stupas or central solid "spine" of the pagoda showed the significant changes in design from single story, simple round cones to those supported on two story bases with increasingly complex decorative features and more elegant elongate outlines. The features of the Buddhas within also evolved from Indian heritage features to Burmese. The area of Bagan is a well recognised Archialogical precinct but during the period of strict military regime prior to 2010 there was no outside expertise permitted and some ineffective repair work to the earthquake damage was undertaken. Since the intercession of Baraq Obama and Hilary Clinton in 2010 UNESCO has become re involved and gradually restoration is being undertaken. We first went to a temple built in 1120 which was huge and elaborate with gold paint and surrounding complex. Here we saw a group of women who had brought lunch to the monks sitting in the cloister area and being rehearsed by a monk in the 8 princliples of Buddhist rules for living.
From there we went to an older temple to see wall frescos which had been restored after being painted over with limestone wash. We also saw the evidence of where a German tourist had made repeated visits to remove some of these small detailed pictures of the Buddha's life. Imterestingly during WW 2 the Japanesse and the Allies had an embargo on bombing Bagan because of the significance of the area. This resulted in some unintended damage to the interior of the temples because the people from strife torn areas moved into them and smoke from their cooking fires damaged the walls.
The next pagoda was middle era and demonstrated the increasingly sophistocated internal architecture. Here the design incorporated sound baffles to reduce echos, through flow currents of air for coolness and careful imtroduction of natural light including windows to shine light on the Buddha's face at midday. Also the external use of locking cornerstones of limstone which held the building firmly and minimised shaking damage during quakes.
The grand finale was the Ananda Temple which is the first one to be completely restored under UNESCO supevision. It has had the natural limestone and brick render cleaned and minor quake damage repaired. It is significant for the limited use of gold paint also. We could clearly see the value of the locking style of construction in this huge complex where quake damage had been limited to one small part of the roof which was easily repaired. Possibly the most impressive feature inside were the huge teak doors weighing 2-3 tons which can still pivot but which have been secured to remove risk of getting tourists toes amputated.
The afternoon involved a visit to a laquerware factory which was fascinating and gave increased respect for the means of making these products. Then on to a specially constructed mound designed to give sunset viewing of the Bagan skyline. This was a bit of a phizzer because the mound was  not very high and clouds from a hurricane over Yangon obscured the sunset. We happily went back early to our welcome berth and dinner. After dinner we saw tthe first half of an excellant movie on the development of Aung Sun Suchi's political career. It was hilarious when the crew had obviously decided how late we should be watching and turned the film off mid point after an hour to loud protests from the audience. We will be back tonight to see the 2nd half.