About a week after the suggestion was first made, the plan to establish a new location for watching sunsets in Bagan following an earthquake that destroyed hundreds of pagodas in August is gaining momentum.
The new area would be a raised hill next to Ko Mount Lake, according to a report in the Myanmar Times.
“If we watch the sunset from the bank, it protects the strength of pagodas and provides advantages for residents,” U Aung Aung Kyaw, the director of the archeology department in Bagan, told the newspaper.
Funded by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency, or JICA, the project could be ready by the end of the year if approved by the government.
The costs would involve raising the hill to give it a better vantage point.
Visitors in Bagan normally climb up on pagodas to catch the sunset, but the 6.8-magnitude quake last month prompted safety concerns about the activity.
In the first week of this month, the minister of Mandalay Region suggested finding a new location, citing the injury of a Spanish tourist who had climbed one of the sites before the earthquake (though not while watching the sunset).
“It was luck that only a Spanish woman was wounded. If the earthquake would happen around 6pm, there will be more injured people,” Mandalay regional minister Dr. Zaw Myint Maung was quoted as saying.
The earthquake damaged some 400 structures and killed at least three people, though the victims were not in Bagan.
The clean-up and restoration at the ancient site, which dates to the 10th century, is ongoing.
Watching the sunset in Bagan has long been a must-do for tourists, but after a party was held atop one of the pagodas earlier this year, authorities banned the activity.
They quickly amended the ban to exempt five popular sites.
Daw Sanda Khin, the chairperson of the Myanmar Cultural Heritage Trust, told Coconuts Yangon earlier this month that not all needed to be off limits.
“It’s okay to climb some pagodas, those that have a core in the middle and have enough strength. But if there is valuable artwork in that pagoda, it should be in the restricted list.”
