Mingalaba again!
From Inle lake we continued with a cargo bus (hehehe...those bumpy and narrow roads in Burma are not for everyone - definitely a night to remember) to Mandalay, where we rented bicycles and wandered around busy streets, local markets, climbed up to the Mandalay hill just in time for the sunset, visited old wooden monastery and main pagoda with huge golden Buddha (from the first blog). Next day we rented one old motorbike, borrowed a map and went straight to 4 ancient cities. First one on our list was Palaik, which is well known as "mini Bagan"...lots of different pagodas and one temple with two cold&long guards - huge pitons actually!!! From there we continued to Inwa, Sagaing and Amarapura with famous U Bein bridge. For me nothing so special - just an old&long wooden bridge surranded with souvenir stalls.
For all these ancient cities u have to pay an entrance fee of 10$ (contribution to their "sufficient" government)...still don't know how, but somehow we managed to enter without paying anything. They sad to us that it's impossible, but as u can see...everything is possible - or maybe we were just lucky:)
Then beautiful Bagan with -
u can guess what - lots of pagodas of course! But it was incrediable!
Bagan, the ancient royal capital of Myanmar, is one of Buddhism's three greatest monuments, along with Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Borobadur in Indonesia.
This ancient capital with some 4000 pagodas was founded in 849, whose splendour climaxed during the reign of the first Burmese King Anawrahta in 1057, with over 2000 buildings in an area of 40 Sq Km.
It is one of the richest archaeological sites in Asia and the main tourist destination in Myanmar. That was probably the main reason that local sellers literally attacked us with souvenirs, postcards... First words when children saw us were "Hello, money" or "present for me?" !!! Instead of spending time in school , they are constantly around main pagodas in search for tourists with open wallets. But it's not their foult - they are still to young to understand anything...it'a their parents foult - they teach them a couple of basic english words and tell them to earn as much as possible. Of course it is almost the same in every touristic place around the third world countrys. Unfortunately.
Finally came even our time for
the first beach in Burma :) We decided for local one - Chaungtha beach. Main beach was crowded with locals, beach resorts, food stalls, bicycles, tires for rent (90% of locals don't know how to swim)...and u can even rent a horse for a short ride - I skipped that nice experience :)
Main beach is not so nice for swimming...but if u walk a little bit further, around the first corner (pass the pagoda) - ohhh yeah!!! There u can find sandy, long, empty and quite beach with clear water and palm trees for shadow. There we spent relaxing days, met 3 really nice dutch guys (hello guys), ate delicious sea food, drunk a lot of their chai (tea with milk imported from India) and had a lot of fun...what a life :)
Definitely great end for our trip around Burma. In Burma I could spent at least one more month, but they issue visas only for 28 days....so next time :)
A huge part of Burma is still closed for tourists or unreachable by roads. When these remote parts will open u can expect my next blog about this fantastic country :)
TATA,
Jana
Burma's Flag
Map of Burma