#10--heaven, bad food and drunk Burmese

---

Words falter where heart and soul sing...This is Bagan.

I can not articulate the magic of this ancient city, merely speak of its' history and appearance. Beyond these pages is the stuff from which dreams and imagination are made. Bagan is a 42 square Kilometer plain east of the big river. Stretching across this land is an archaelogical playground: over 3000 ancient temples. Most of them are made of brick and burnt orange in color, but some are white or yellow cement.

On the first full day, we hired a covered horse cart (10,000 kyats) to drive us along the powdery dirt roads to some of the more significant locations. His horse was named Rambo and he was Tittee--two names I was able to remember. Some of the temples were well touristed with local vendors selling postcards, paintings, bells, pipes and Buddhist relics. All temples had at least one large (10 feet+) buddha. Our favorites were "uninhabited" and had crumbling stairwells leading to upper levels with outdoor platforms; complete with panoramic views.

We stopped for lunch along the way and tried a Myanmar buffet of sorts (2000 kyats). It was similar to Indian food but was either over or under spiced. A couple of times, Chris and I thought we were going to yack at some of the flavors. The mutton tasted like bad breath, and the only cure was this lemony pepper salsa sidedish that was a cross between lemony household cleaners and a mouth-burning Habenera. The buffet was half okay and half awful--our worst meal yet.

We visited a higher-end hotel in the evening to see if I could use my ATM card (as my traveler's checks were useless), but will have to become guests tomorrow to access their services. What we thought would be an hour walk pushed two-and-a-half, so we opted to horsecart back. Our quiet night ride exploded into hilarity when a drunken tri-shaw driver began chasing our horsecart. He was singing and trying to get our driver, his friend, to drink with him. Like most of the men, his mouth was red with some Burmese chewing tobacco, but in his drunken state had it smeared all over his face and dripping from his mouth.

If it wasn't so amusing I might have been grossed out or pissed off when we stopped and he turned his attention to me. He tried to wrestle me into his tri-shaw and buy me for 1000 kyats (1000 kyats--come on!). Chris was too busy laughing to offer much aid. With the help of our hotel security and a German woman leading him away with a cigarette, we were able to distract him long enough to lock him outside the hotel gates. And I wasn't even wearing my best cologne...LOL

---