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Published: November 4th 2009
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The plains of Bagan
The temples as seen from our hotel Bagan....30th October 2009
We had a bit of an adventure leaving
Mandalay. The taxi we paid $13 for turned out to be a shared taxi which should have been half that price! That wasn't too much of a problem but the taxi driver left us alone in the taxi for 20 mins while he went
somewhere (turned out he was collecting the 3rd person we were sharing with).
Now the problem was that we had 35 mins to make a 60min journey to the airport! He drove like an absolute maniac but to be fair, we got there with minutes to spare but we seriously thought he would kill someone, probably us!
Anyway the plane trip to
Bagan took all of 25mins, just time for a glass of water and down again. Quick taxi ride to our hotel
Thiri Malar which is really nice. There seemed to be no problem that we had arrived a day early............ found out why next day...... we are the only people staying here! We had dinner down by the river in a really very plush riverside restaurant called
The Green Elephant. Apart from a French family and a another table, we
Full Moon Parade
The dancing elephant parade in New Bagan were the only people there. As we left at 9.00pm they shut up shop. Next night we went to an even more luxurious river side restaurant
Golden Sunset and we were the
only ones there also!! Such a shame. Myanmar is clearly well set up for tourism but for the last 2 years nobody comes. Well very few anyway. We know who to blame but it is such a shame for the people who depend on tourism to survive.
Bagan is very rural, quiet and peaceful apart that is for the loud celebrations going on at the various Pagodas leading up to full moon. Last night we watched an evening procession to a Pagoda led by a dancing elephant (2 men dressed up in costume), people carrying pyramids of money and children waving flags of 2,000 Kyat notes (pronounced chatts), 2 men dressed as ladyboys pretending to argue and a lion dance like the ones you see at Chinese New Year. Crazy!
Bagan is famous for more than 4,000 Pagodas of all shapes and sizes, mostly ruined or being restored, all set in 16 square miles of countryside alongside the Ayerawaddy river. You reach them from Old or
New Bagan either by taxi, pony and cart or by bicycle which you can hire from the hotels. We stayed right on the edge of New Bagan and from the roof garden you can see hundreds of pagodas and stupas.
For 2 days we......guess what.....hired bikes......are we mad or what? At our age and in this heat??????? The roads are OK but the tracks are very dry sand which can be tricky, especially if you haven't ridden a bike for 10 years. First day ......Ann fell off and has the bruises to prove it (black ones and blue ones), second day she rode into a thorn bush.......that was it..... no more!! Pony and cart next. However, we did meet the most lovely family who ran the San Thi Dar restaurant. Mum, the cook,dad with the betel red teeth and son Pyi Sone who had a half day off school and who had just won 4,000 kyats when he bet his mate that his team, Liverpool would beat his friend's team Man Utd. We only ordered 2 banana pancakes and ended up with an extra gift of a dish of fresh fruit, peanuts, and tamarind flakes, then they insisted on
giving David a whole bag of the gorgeous sweets, Ann a laquerware bracelet and a bottle of ice cold water to take away. Next day we felt we wanted to go back and support them but were almost sorry when we ended up unable to ride the bikes home after the 'Myanmar banquet' and a pineapple and more water to take away. What fabulous, generous people.
Actually the pony and cart turned out to be a godsend too. Not only did we have shade but Mimin our driver took us to quiet, more remote pagodas that we hadn't seen already. 13 more in all. You might call them Pagodas but actually Loney planet more accurately describes them as shopping opportunities!!! and it does get a bit wearing when every stall holder and child holding a string of postcards seems to be convinced that the only reason you went there was to buy something from them.
Despite fighting them off all day we had to succumb and buy some sand paintings from Mimin's
brother !!!! and a blouse for Ann after she had had her face and arms covered in Thanaka by an overzealous stall holder, who insisted they
Temple in Bagan
The five sided temple were now Myanmar sisters and David must take a photo. Actually, Ann says it is very cooling and apparently keeps away mosquitoes. However she did cause a few giggles at the next temple so sadly it had to be removed forthwith!
After 4 nights and Pagoda overkill we moved to a slightly more upmarket hotel nearby that had the complete and utter luxury of a pool. The
Kumudara also had even better frontline views of many, many pagodas and the key to a nearby monastery from whose roof we had a fabulous view of the sun setting over the Ayerawaddy. The last 2 days were spent hogging the poolside, swimming,reading and apart from an evening foray into New Bagan village for a few beers doing sweet FA!
Must just add that we were persuaded by the restaurant manager, Zaw Zaw, to have a candlelit dinner by the pool. He came to our room and took the order for appetizers (poppadoms and tempura vegetables), soup, 2 curries, 2 side dishes and dessert for the pricely sum of $8 .....as we go to press About £2.80 a head and all served by no less than 4 boys and the manager
himself........ what more could you want????? ( ah!!!cold white wine????)
Tuesday, 3rd November took the air 'bus' back to Yangon, via Mandalay (25mins), Heho (25 mins) and Yangon (65mins). 2 nights here at the
Okinawa Guest House (so much below our usual standards (snobs!!!) but very central downtown where we didn't do much last time we were here) then on to Bali via 1 night in Bangkok........isn't that a cue for a song???++=+++=
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