Bagan, the fairy tale land

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Dear Friends,

Although we are in Thailand already, we still owe you with our final entry on Myanmar. So here you go!

Wonderland

After our lengthy budget cruise we got back safe to Mandalay. There we only spent one day this time, which passed in lazyness but socially. We met 2 fellow travellers in the guesthouse, Marcel from Germany and Tim from Australia. Both nice guys, Tim is on the way to become a Buddhist monk so we had interesting discussions about religion, spirituality and the likes.

Next day Marcel joined us on the bus to Bagan, which is "the tourist destination" in Myanmar. You would think that the road between Mandalay and Bagan is pretty OK, knowing the big flow of tourists and locals on this stretch every day, but no. The worst ride in Myanmar... full with bumps, dirt roads, so poor "comfort tourists" could experience the real Myanmar even if they just tick marked Mandalay and Bagan on their holidays...

We had some hassle to find our accommodation in Bagan. There were plenty of options, but many touts as well. Add the eager horse cart drivers with the poor animals sweating in the 35 degrees, plus 15 kg on your back, dust in your throat, this is how it feels when you arrive to Bagan. Anyways, we found our new home for the next couple of days and dived into cheap local draft beer for the rest of the day. At a moment it was scary to see the number of beer mugs on our table as the bar does not take the empty ones away, but the more we drank the less we were bothered by this view ;o)

Cycle Bagan

For the next 2 days we rented bicycles as this is the easiest way to visit the pagodas. Funny thing is you start with a plan with a list of pagodas and temples you want to see, but on the way you can so easily be drifted away from your plan. There are so many no-name pagodas which look magnificent, so after 1 hour we just let our instincts to show the way. So we could climb to the top of several pagodas to enjoy the view, met local artists trying to sell sand paintings and sand carvings, entertained the local kids with candies (even though their English language knowledge was limited to: "Hello, money?", "Hello, bon bon?", "Dollar?", " Postcard, 1000 kyat"). They were sweet kids, just spoiled by the tourists... Anyways, they liked our candies and left us alone after a while...

Next morning, we naive tourists went for the sunrise. This meant leaving the guest house at 5 am in pitch dark and leaving the asphalt road to the deep sand tracks still in pitch dark. Yes, I regretted a few times that I left my bed as we could hardly see where the sand tracks were leading, the scattered road signs mostly were in burmese (except for some irrelevant ones in English, for example: "Pagoda nr. 805"). Of course the pagodas are not numbered on the tourist maps, so still no clue.

After approx 1 hour night-ride the sun stared to reach the horizon, so we could more or less find out where we were and decided to wait for the proper sunrise on top of a huge pagoda with platform to all sides. Again, naive tourists... as the air is full with dust in the area of Bagan, we could not see the sun rise, only when it was almost over our head, as the dust clouds covered it completely: It's the dry season now, so the air is dusty. But the morning views should be stunning just after the first rains which are due in June... So after some hungry rumbles in our stomachs we headed for the rest of the pagodas on that day.

Back to Yangoon

Our bus ride back to Yangoon was eventless and mostly sleepless too. Another uncomfi ride, so we happily dove into bed in the guest house upon arrival at 6 am... We spent the day with sending postcards back to home and taking showers several times during the day. The weather has changed significantly in Yangoon since our first visit, it became much more humid, we were soaking all the time in our sweat. Yes, the monsoon is on the way, but still 2 months to go.

Next morning we left Myanmar to Bangkok. We enjoyed our trip to Myanmar a lot, but 3.5 weeks were enough. We have not seen all the sights, but this was never the plan. Wanna go back again and get lost in nature.

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Photos

Bagan landscape
Imagine 4000 pagodas scattered on an area of 40 sqkm. They are old and new, small and big, brick and white or golden and they are all around. Amazing view...

Take a photo of me please!
Posing novice monks at one of the pagodas in Bagan. They asked us to take this picture of them. They were on the way to the garden...

Golden glittery
No clue about the name, but it's something like Swedagon. Interesting architecture: shadows are always the same, the sound made on one side cannot be heard on the other side, it can accommodate any number of pilgrims, etc. Beautiful.

"Tanaka girls"
No, these girls are not wearing a make up, they are protecting their skin from the sun. Tanaka is the local magic, which is made from the bark of the Tanaka tree, mixed with water and applied on skin. Men also use it as it gives nice smooth and soft skin. It's great stuff, better than sunscreen, so I bought my own Tanaka set :o)

Morning view
The landscape from the top of one of the pagodas..

Comments

[Olga Abramova]

Does it really exist? Isn't ita movie?