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Published: September 18th 2014
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When I last left you I was waiting for a flight from the former capital city, Yangon, to the ancient capital and what Burmese people consider the heart of their country - Bagan. There are over 3,000 Buddhist pagodas and stupas scattered over an area of about four square miles. These plains of Bagan are the site of the first Burmese kingdom. It is possible to view almost all of them from a distance and actually go into quite a few. Sadly, many of them are derelict but it seems that funds are being provided for some renovations. All visitors to Burma must go to Bagan because if you miss it you miss the essential Burma.
The plane left at 1:30 and made a few brief stops – at Heho Airport near InleLake where they said it was 25°C, at Mandalay where it was 35°C and finally in Bagan where it was 35°C when we arrived about 4:00pm. I thought that was hot! I took a taxi from the airport to a guest house that seemed good in the Lonely Planet I had just bought in Hong Kong. The problem was that it was out-of-date, as is any travel guide
published more than two years ago. That was when the great upheaval happened in Burma and the military government began to relax it's restrictions on the people. That guest house had been refurbished and a swimming pool was added. A single room would be $50. No thanks. The taxi driver kindly brought me to my next choice, the New Park Hotel, single-storey wooden cottages divided into suites, each with its own veranda. It was very nice with small bungalows with bathrooms, cable TV with HBO (!) and air conditioning. I paid $25/night for a twin room which included breakfast. They had no single rooms.
All overnight accommodation in Burma includes a breakfast of fruit (usually bananas or watermelon), eggs, toast with butter and jam, maybe powdered juice (“Tang”) and super-strong milky tea or coffee. Travelling as a coeliac can be a minor nuisance. I bring my own gluten-free porridge/muesli and a bowl and have no problem getting the kitchen staff to let me use the microwave or to cook it for me. My gluten-free bread had been used up but in Hong Kong so I bought two packets of rye crispbread and a small jar of smooth peanut butter.
I always carry teabags from Ireland and my thermal mug with a lid from Winnipeg and that all worked out very well. Once I have an OK breakfast I only need one more meal in the day. Like most guest houses, they have bicycles and electric bikes for rent and will book onward journeys for guests.
The New Park was in the village of Nyaung U, which is really nothing more than a grid of dusty streets about four blocks square. It was great to be able to stroll around the corner after dark to a selection of restaurants and small shops. The Black Bamboo restaurant had nice food and wasn't expensive.
Bagan was also very hot – in the high 40°Cs. There are plenty of push bikes and electric bikes to rent but the heat is such that most people can only go out for a few hours in the morning and from perhaps 4:00 – 7:00 in the evening. I rented an e-bike one morning and found it had a mind of its own, “when it was good it was very, very good but when it was bad it was horrid.” I had the bruises to
prove it.
One of the main tourist activities in Bagan is sunset-hunting. Some people spend all day hunting for the perfect pagoda from which they will watch the sunset. (I met a Chinese girl in Hong Kong who had also hunted for ideal sunrise venues.) At about 5:00pm newcomers go to one of the largest pagodas and share the tiers with a few coach loads of tourists who are there for the same reason. Some French men showed me a very nice pagoda a distance away where I could climb up and enjoy the view in relative peace. After all that, there were no sunsets when I was there because the evenings were somewhat cloudy. Sunset is about 6:00 so I had to cycle the two miles or so home in the dark which is not fun. I held my small wind-up torch in front of me and luckily there was little traffic.
One evening I happened upon the Thanaka Museum in Nyaung U, guarded by the dozey monkey in my photo. Thanaka is a common tree and the wood is used to make a facial paste. Before I went to Burma I saw photos of people with
white circles on their faces and I wondered if they were members of an indigenous tribe. When I arrived I saw people everywhere with the same white paste on their faces and discovered that it is a sunscreen. Apparently it not only protects facial skin but makes it softer. Parents like to ensure that their children are protected from the strong sun. I will attach a photo of a girl preparing the cream by rubbing a short stick of thanaka onto a flat stone while adding drops of water to make the paste. She then spread it onto her face with a comb.
At my guest house I met an Englishwoman who was born and reared in Taunton, Somerset, where I was born. She was petite, 59, divorced and has been travelling in southeast Asia for 12 years! She only carries a schoolbag on her back with her spare set of clothes, toothbrush, etc. plus a bag with her small laptop and a tin plate. How does she do it? I’d love to travel that light.
I had been advised to take a flight in a hot air balloon but I didn't do so. I think they were
thanaka sun cream
she rubs the wood on the flat stone and adds water to make paste either off-season or too expensive. I regularly encountered problems from being here out of the tourist season which is October – February. For example, I wanted to take an 11-hour boat trip down the Ayeyarwady River from Bagan to Mandalay, but there weren’t enough tourists to make it worthwhile for the company. After two full days in Bagan I had seen all there was to see and the heat was pressing me to find cooler climes. I rode an air-conditioned bus for six hours to Mandalay, which was quite OK. I had heard the songs, seen the old films and read the stories for years, now I couldn’t wait to see Mandalay!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Hello Friend
Good to see you exploring again. Burma is lovely isn't it. We really enjoyed our time there. Inle lake was one of my favorite places. We had two earth quakes while we were in Mandalay. Enjoy.