A friend once told me Myanmar was one of the last places on the planet where you’d still feel like a traveler, not a tourist.
That stuck.
I’ve been more than once. First time around 2010, when the country was still under the junta and getting in meant flying into Yangon with cash and no plan. Later, under democracy, with phones and ATMs and a different kind of noise. I’m looking forward to going back.
Bagan Trading Company is named for a place that earned that traveler feeling the hard way. Bagan sits in central Myanmar, on a dry plain along the Irrawaddy. From the 11th to the 13th centuries, the kingdom that ruled from here built thousands of Buddhist temples and pagodas across a stretch of land about forty square miles — on the order of Manhattan, a bit larger. Something like ten thousand went up. A little over two thousand still stand. For a long time the country was closed enough that standing out there didn’t feel like a checklist. It felt like you’d left the map.
This site isn’t a Myanmar souvenir shop, and it isn’t a lecture. It’s for people who’d rather be travelers than tourists — the ones who still want the sense of adventure that line was pointing at.
If that’s you, you’re in the right place.