Mandalay to Bagan - Boattrip (schnichla)

---

So next chapter of travelling!!!

Happy to get away from Hsipaw we went to Mandalay again, stayed one more night there just to recover - Mandalay was also not the cleanest city - to catch the local slow boat to Bagan. That was a nice experience, sitting on top of a quite big boat with all the locals together on the floor. The first time fresh air because we drove along the Iradawady river, a mighty stream in Burma. We passed bathing kids, farmers with oxcarts, loads of teakwoodtrading ships and loads of piles of teakwood along the river - and not to forget, lots of stupas everywhere - Burma, definetly the land of stupas!! My motto for the country - stop building stupas - plant trees!!!

After 13 hours on the boat we arrived in the late evening in Bagan area, took a taxi to new Bagan and went to our nice hotel Kumudara - after all the dirt, heat a really lovely place with nice rooms, eatable food (the Burmese kitchen with all the sour flavours will never be my favourite) and located within - of course -more stupas than ever.

The next morning we hired a bike and discouvered the main attractions of the thousand of stupas. We passed horsecarts - another option of transport - and travelled. It i really amazing, not a single temple itsself, but the amount of stupas alltogether. Standing on a plateau and overlooking the scene is a good way to get an impression, of course sunrise and sunset are best moments to do that. In the afternoons it got quite hot. We took also one day of competly doing nothing and another day we explored again other nice highlights on the bike. But after all after 3 days I had enough stupas and I'm not worried to see more in other parts of Burma - they are everywhere!!

Next destinations: Kalaw - Inle Lake

I hope you enjoyed reading - see you soon again hopefully!!

---