Bagan - Pagoda, Temple, Pagoda, Pagoda...

On our arrival in Bagan we were met by Mr. Moo, a friend of our driver in Mandalay. Mr. Moo's English proved excellent, but chatting with him was a bit disconcerting visually. Like many Burmese he is addicted to chewing Betel nut. As a result, when he smiled, it looked as if he had been drinking chicken blood. During our short drive to our hotel we observed that Bagan, which is located along the Ayerwaddy River, is hot, dusty and desert like, with nothing but sand, and dry scrubby bushes....and, oh yes, more than 2,500 pagodas and temples dating back more than 1200 years! There had been some 5,000 temples, but a brief and violent visit from Kublai Khan in mid-13th century reduced the number of temples by half.

While in Bangkok, we had pre-paid 6 nights at the Old Bagan Thande hotel and this proved a wise decision due to our on-going problems with "unacceptable" currency in Burma. The hotel was built in 1922 in honour of a visit by the Prince of Wales (no Wallace Simpson in tow at this point) and is a series of bungalows and duplex rooms located on a bend of the Ayerwaddy in the old section of Bagan. We estimated occupancy in this hotel at around 10% which might be why we were upgraded to a enormous room built into the bank of the river, providing us with a fabulous view of both sunset and moonrise over the mighty Ayerwaddy. The dining area is located under massive trees overlooking the river although the food proved pretty poor as seems to be the case in most places we have visited in Burma. Our swimming pool however proved a godsend in the 38-42 Celsius mid-day heat. The pool is located under some large cooling trees and overlooked by two 1,000 year old pagodas. Wonderful to float around while gazing at these incredible structures.

We were up bright and early in order to take advantage of the cool morning air and the fact that we were still recovering from our bout of food poisoning up in Hsipaw. As soon as we walked out of the main gates a horde of vendors descended upon us. We had previously been informed that tourism is down more than 80% in Burma and, furthermore, since tour groups seem to buy only at government-approved tourist stores, the few solo travellers are the target of desperate sales people who stake out the most popular temples and hotels/inns. We turned all of the offers down, but did agree to rent a horse and cart from Mr. Moo Moo (horse named Miu) the next day. One persistent young lad, about 10 years old, attached himself to us and followed us as we wandered from temple to pagoda. Lili took it upon himself to provide us with relevant historical information while at the same time keeping other touts away from us. He proved to be a charming young fellow and, once he began picking flowers for Helen, we were lost; he became our de facto guide and he was great. We spent the morning climbing old temples and pagodas in and around the Old Bagan city walls with him.

In order to climb these historic buildings you are required to remove shoes and socks, and as the temperature climbed to 40 c. the stones became hotter and hotter. By noon the stones began to blister the soles of our feet, so we hastily began our trek back to the comfort of our cool swimming pool. On the way we stopped to purchase some finely detailed sand paintings. Saying our goodbyes and thanks to Lili, we presented him with $2 in Burmese Kyat and 3 of the illustrated Burmese-English books we had purchased at a small publishing concern in Yangoon called the Golden Rabbit. These books are written and wonderfully illustrated by children. Lili was enraptured by the one about dinosaurs and promised to give the other 2 to his younger sisters.

Back at the hotel pool we met Catherine, a lovely Chinese-American lady from California who is an eye surgeon undertaking volunteer surgery for 1 week on behalf of ORBIS. The latter is a charitable foundation and they have fully equipped surgical operating rooms built into a DC-10, which is then flown to areas where surgery is desparately needed. She informed us that this plane is the best equipped operating theatre in Burma. Catherine and Helen really hit it off and she provided sage advice about travelling in SW China. She made the point that even though she is fluent in Mandarin, she still used the services of Chinese guides as they made quick work of all the bureaucratic hurdles encountered on a regular basis. As a result we are now thinking of hiring some local guides in China when we visist next month.

The next day we visited temple a little farther afield with our horse cart and were pursued by souvenir sellers on bicycles. Ended up buying more sand paintings, these from a sweet young woman at one of the temples. We climbed one of the temples in the late afternoon to watch the sun go down, dark red in a sky hazy with the smoke of evening cooking fires. The tinkling of cowbells contributed to the magic. We got up early one morning to visit Mount Popa, about 50km away. It rises 737 meters above the plain and is topped by a temple, the material for which had to be hand carried up the long winding stairs built into the rock outcropping. The temple is Buddhist, but is also considered home to the 37 Nats, who are at the center of Burmese animist beliefs. It also home to a large monkey group, always on the lookout for snacks. The little brutues can be quite aggressive and while climbing up to the temple we spent a fair bit of time avoiding them while at the same time stepping around the many smelly deposits they leave behind. The latter challenge is accentuated by the fact that you must climb Mount Popa (it should be spelled Mt. Poopa) barefoot - we really scrubbed our feet when we climbed down a few hours later.

The ride to Mount Popa was as interesting as the site itself. Along the way we stopped to watch a man climbing up a palm tree with incredible speed. Turns out the family makes palm sugar. He invited us in to see how its done and we had a fun chat comparing palm and maple sugar production. Tea and palm sugar "white lightening" liquor was served along with flat bread and a number of vegetarian spreads; the most delicious of which was made from fresh tea leaves, oil and salt. When we left, his wife gave us cubes of palm and plum sugar in boxes that she wove herself. We wanted to pay her, but she refused to accept anything, saying that to sell the sugar close to the trees would bring bad luck and make them less productive. Sugar must be sold at the market. So, we gave the children Golden Rabbit books and asked if we could make a contribution to their school costs, which was ok. The nats would not be offended.

Our last couple of days we rented bicycles to ride to temples too distant to walk to. A lovely way to travel although the sand bogged us down at times. As became the norm, we retreated at noon from the blistering heat to the welome embrace of our cooling swimming pool. By 3 or 4 p.m. we were once again riding our 1 gear steeds onto the sandy plain and making best guesses as to which pagoda to climb for that all important sunset shot. We were never entirely pleased with these shots as the sky is overcast and hazy - our theory is that this is due to all the smoke from burning of farm fields and forests (throughout SE Asia) in preparation for planting.

Bagan is a wonderful historical and archaeological site a place we really wanted to visit in Burma. It is a very different site from Angkor Wat and the two should not be compared as they are both amazing in their own way. After 5 days at Bagan we are really looking forward to mountainous Inle Lake.

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