The Ghost Town of Mrauk-U, Which Outlived the Empire (24 photos + 1 video)
Imagine the enchanted ancient city of Bagan, but without the tourist buses, plastic bottles, and selfie sticks. Now add goats, peasant women with jars on their heads, and temples where you can touch the walls with your hands because no one put up fences. 
You get Mrauk-U—the forgotten capital of an empire that time didn't destroy, but rather let through. 
Mrauk-U, or Arrakan (Arrakan City) behind the Portuguese settlement of Daingri-pet, from Wouter Schouten, 1676
In the rolling plains of Rakhine State in western Myanmar (formerly Burma) lies a place that is rarely written about. This is the medieval city of Mrauk-U. In the 16th and 17th centuries, it was bustling with activity: Portuguese, Dutch, and French traders traded with Bengali scholars, and fugitive Mughal princes sought refuge at the court of the powerful kings of Arakan. 
Today, it's a sleepy village. Shepherds lazily herd goats and cows, women diligently draw water from wells right at the foot of 500-year-old pagodas, and children merrily run up and down the steps where priests once watched the stars. 
Shite Taung Temple
Mrauk-U was founded by King Min So Mon in 1430. The city remained the capital for over 350 years (until 1785). At its height, the Arakan Empire controlled half of modern-day Bangladesh and the western part of Lower Burma. 
Htukkanthein Temple
The city's fame reached Europe thanks to the Portuguese missionary and explorer Fray Sebastião Manrique. In 1635, he published a vivid description of the coronation of King Thiri Thudhamma, after which European cartographers began depicting Mrauk-U as a "city of oriental splendor." 
Thus, Myanmar has two great temple complexes. These are Bagan (the tourist giant) and Mrauk-U (its lost younger brother). But they have more differences than similarities. 
Andau-tein Priesthood Ordination Hall
The temples of Mrauk-U are built of hewn stone blocks, not baked clay and brick like those in Bagan. Some resemble bunkers with thick walls and narrow loopholes. They were built as shelters in case of war. 
Le-myet-na Temple
In Bagan, many temples are closed to visitors. In Mrauk-U, they are all open. You can practically climb anywhere. And that's an important part of the magic. 
Misty evening landscape around ancient temples
In Bagan, tourists have displaced local residents from the historic center. In Mrauk-U, people live right among the ancient ruins. Here, ruins are merely a backdrop to ordinary life. Crowds of young women fill tin jugs at wells next to temples and cut through cracked pagoda steps to reach fields sandwiched between 15th-century walls. Old people sit under trees among piles of smoldering rubbish and flocks of goats. 
View of the pagodas at dawn
Planes don't fly here. The nearest airport is in Sittwe, and from there you need to take a 7-8-hour boat ride down the Kaladan River. That's why there are almost no tourists here. And that's why Mrauk-U feels untouched by time. 
At one time, the city was surrounded by long defensive walls and moats. The Royal Palace stood in the center. Today, only the foundation and a few stones, overgrown with bushes, remain. But there's a certain poetry to this: empires pass, but goatherds remain. 
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