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Published: July 10th 2012
Arriving at a new place in the middle of a night is never nice. For one thing you are still half asleep and for another you feel much disoriented about where you are and what you are doing there. It is also a time when your common sense may be switched off for a while and you are more likely to agree on some room or rickshaw or simply any other fare that normally you would not. We had no choice though if we wanted to save some time and not to overnight in Yangon. We really, really did not want to take a night bus (not a sleeper bus) but that way we could save some money on accommodation and some time on getting into Bagan. We were rushed out of a bus and some tricycle drivers were already waiting for potential customers. It was like 4 am so my question was why, but I guess that is a part of the deal in this line of work. We told them the name of a hotel we thought we might check and they said they knew a cheaper one so we thought they were representing a particular hotel, therefore the
ride was free. As I said, we were half asleep and it did not even occur to us to even ask...
We ended up staying in an ok hotel (forgot the name already) for 15$ with breakfast and aircon (yeah finally) but tricycle drivers wanted 2000Kyat/2,5$ each for this rather short night ride (maybe 1,5km). We tried to argue but they would not back down and we were too tired to stay awake any longer. Normally it costs like maybe 500K so that is why they are up at 4 am ha? The location of a hotel does not even matter that much in Bagan as you will find yourself renting a bike everyday anyway to move around.
Nyaung U is a small town so you can basically walk everywhere. Good thing about our location was that there were some really nice restaurants nearby where we could not just pass by without trying some yummy curry or fruit shakes. Our hotel rented us bicycle for 1500kiat a day and after few hours of sleep we decided to take an afternoon stroll to see some temples – we just could not wait. We started from the nearby North Plain and
were amazed by some of the structures like golden
Shwezigon Paya. Apparently it is considered to be a prototype of many Payas across country – so close to perfection ;-) Even thought it was like 4 pm the temperature would not go below 45 degrees Celsius anyway and suddenly cycling did not seem like such a great idea ;-). We decided not to give up and see at least few of the top temples in Old Bagan and finish at the sunset favorite –
Pyathada Paya. When we got there it became very clear that everybody thinks of it as sunset choice as even though we did not see any tourist for the whole time when cycling alongside the temples, here suddenly we could meet tour groups etc.
It was still nice to just sit on top of this temple and wait for sun to descent behind this majestic landscape. It was a vast land before our eyes and we could not believe how authentic it looked. When we heard the story about government relocating people from Old Bagan to New Bagan we thought it was very harsh movement. However, when you visit the place and see the importance
of these cultural relicts you begin to understand why. Within the first week of our stay in Burma we learnt how dirty places can look like when there are too many people around and that the concept of dropping your waste in a dedicated place is somehow foreign to everybody. We could not even begin to think how Bagan would have looked like if there were still households around. The way it is makes it authentic, stunning and unbelievably incredible place to visit. We said that Angkor was the queen of all temples but we would have to pass the crown to Bagan, now that we have seen it ;-).
We spent four days in Bagan, cycling every day around old temples, small and big, climbing every one that was possible to climb. Majority of time we were alone with the temples and some locals trying to show us around (for one dollar they will happily take you up to the top of a temple that you thought was not accessible). This must have been the best part of is all – being just alone with the ancient pieces of Buddhist history, taking our time to see the details
of art work and being amazed most of the time of how many temples there were around at any given time. We visited all of the important temples, all the must-see and found one –
Buledi Temple in Central Plain - which we liked the most for sunrise and sunset. It was always empty of other travelers/tourists so we could just sit at the top and breathe in some ancient history ;-) Getting up at 5 am is never easy but it is also so much nicer to cycle in cooler temperatures and then see the amazing sunrise before you even have a chance to have breakfast. I guess that is the point about visiting Bagan on your own. You take your time to see the major temples (more than 4000 temples is difficult to visit anyway), discover your favorite ones hidden somewhere between flower trees or other bigger payas and just admire the surroundings. We hope the Old Bagan will never be transformed into Angkor Wat type of experience where the tourist infrastructure takes a charm away from it in a way …..
Additional note: • When travelling from the south you don’t have
to overnight in Yangon. There is a 17:30 or 18:00 o’clock bus to Bagan or Mandalay through Bagan (K15,000/19$) that you can take provided that you are ok with 20h journey in one go ;-)
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TinNiE
" Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness "
beautiful photos!and this one is perfect. I'm hoping for Burma next year. your new profile picture is pretty nice too :)