"Sprawled across an arid flood plain of the Irrawaddy River in central Myanmar stands Bagan, one of the most remarkable archeological sites in Southeast Asia. The architectural masterpieces built here between the 11th and 13th centuries rank on par with other awe-inspiring religious monuments such as Cambodia’s Angkor Wat and Indonesia’s Borobodur. Amazingly, in the 40sqkm of country that stretches back from the river, over 2,000 Buddhist pagodas are still standing and a further 2,000 are in ruins! As the capital of the country at the time, Bagan must have once also been home to thousands of secular buildings such as palaces and houses. However, because they were constructed of wood, they have all long since rotted away, just leaving a landscape covered in brick pagodas and temples. The mighty Bagan Empire weakened over time and it is thought that Mongol invaders plundered and overran the city at the end of the 13th century. This once-great capital was then abandoned, but still remains as a magnificent memorial to a spectacular Buddhist renaissance. Most tourists arrive at Bagan by air from Yangon, but a far more tranquil mode of transport is by river from Mandalay. We journeyed on the lovely old M.V. Pandaw, a vessel that once belonged to the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company (IFC). Before WWII, this company operated over 650 such boats on the rivers of Myanmar, which was then the British colony of Burma. The whole IFC fleet was deliberately scuttled when the Japanese invaded Burma in the 1940s, but some boats, the Pandaw amongst them, have since been re-furbished..."