Bagan was the capital of the First Burmese Empire (1057 - 1287), until it was overrun by the Mongol armies of Kublai Khan in 1287. At the height of its glory days in the 12th century, it was also known as the "city of four million pagodas", being home to countless temples, pagodas and other religious structures. Today, all that remain of this once mighty capital of the First Burmese Empire are about 2,000 of the religious structures constructed of brick or sandstone which have withstood the eroding elements of weather and time. The other religious buildings have either been reduced to piles of rubble or destroyed and lost, while secular buildigs from the palaces of the rulers to simple dwellings of the ordinary folk, been made of easily degradable wood, bamboo and thatch, have long since disappeared. But although its golden days are long over, the legacy of Burma's Golden Age and Era of the Temple Builders is still there for all to see, in the remains of the surviving temples and pagodas, and crumbled ruins, which dot the hot and dusty plain of Bagan. These are sufficient to make one wonder and imagine what they represented in the past - the magnificence of ancient Bagan at the height of its glory days in the 11th to 13th centuries, with its thousands of temples and pagodas and contemporary civilization. A legacy comparable to the Great Wall of China or the Taj Mahal of India...