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Published: March 21st 2016
Early morning shuttle
This small boat moves people between ports.Day 12-Sunday-January 24- Today Annette & Doug decided to do different excursions, Annette taking the Bagan city tour and Doug taking the Mount Popa tour. We both departed the boat at 9:00am. Before we started our separate tours, both buses met at Thatbyinnyu Temple for a few exterior photos from a distance. It is a famous temple, the tallest in Bagan at just over 200 feet. It is shaped like a cross, but is not symmetrical. Ye Min was Annette's Bagan tour guide and Duli went to Mount Popa. On the Mount Popa tour, there were only about 18 on our bus. Mount Popa, 37 miles southeast of Bagan is an extinct volcano and the oasis of the arid zone. On a clear day it can be seen from the Ayeyarwady River. The soil is naturally fertile so that medicinal plants, trees and fruits such as bananas, papayas and vegetables can be grown in the area. It is believed to be the home of 37 nats. Nats are spirits worshipped in Myanmar in conjunction with Buddhism. Mount Popa is considered the most important nat worship center, and has also been called the Mount Olympus of Burma. It is said to have
Thatbyinnyu Temple
Our first photo stop after leaving the boat this morning. been created from a great earthquake is 442 B.C.
Our first stop on the way to Mount Popa, over an hour bus ride, was a place where they make Jaggery, a sweet candy that is harvested from the sap of the Totty Palm Tree. We got a demonstration from a local who climbed to the top of the tall tree with a thin bamboo ladder. He had several empty pots attached to his belt that he replaced for full ones, which he brought down. The sap is then heated in big wok-looking pans over a fire until its thick. Then another woman chops it into pieces when it solidifies. There is also another station that distills it into an alcohol that tastes like Schnapps. After that, Doug had a chance to work on the ox-drawn wheel that grinds sesame seeds into sesame oil.
We then headed to Mount Popa. The traffic was heavy as it was Sunday and the last day of a Buddhist festival week that they celebrate. The mountain rises 4,980 feet above sea level and is one of Asia’s most popular archaeological destinations. We had the choice of climbing 250 steps to the shoe removal
Good morning Annette
Both buses made this their first stop before going on our separate tours. terrace (non-religious) or removing our shoes and socks at that point and going to the top, a total of 777 steps. Doug decided to go all the way as did our Cruise Manager, Goran, as well as Duli, and 5 others. It wasn’t a bad climb after all. The stairs were constantly being swept and cleaned by folks. We had monkeys most of the way up and the stairway was quite crowded with people. It was well worth the effort! The views at the top were fabulous! We took a group photo at the top. No idea how they could have built that temple atop this mountain.
After our descent, we returned to our bus and went to the very nice Popa Mountain Resort about 20 minutes away on another hilltop for lunch on the deck. There was a nice view overlooking Mount Popa.
Following our initial photo stop at Thatbyinnyu Temple, after leaving the boat, Annette’s tour started at Dhammayangyi Temple for a couple exterior photos. The temple's interior is bricked up for unknown reasons. It is the largest and widest of all the temples in Bagan and built similar to the Ananda Temple that will be
Ox at work
Going around in circles grinding sesame seeds. seen later. The next stop was the Gubyaukgyi Temple, a Buddhist temple built in 1113 AD. This temple is notable for two reasons. First, it contains a large array of well-preserved frescoes on its interior walls, the oldest original paintings to be found in Bagan. All of the frescoes are accompanied by ink captions written in Old Mon, providing one of the earliest examples of the language's use in Myanmar. Second, the temple is located just to the west of the Myazedi pagoda, at which was found two stone pillars with inscriptions written in four, ancient Southeast Asian languages. The next stop was the Ananda Temple, a Buddhist temple built in 1105 AD. It is one of four surviving temples in Bagan. The temple was damaged in an earthquake of 1975. However, it has been fully restored and is well maintained by frequent painting and whitewashing of the walls.
After the Mount Popa lunch we drove to a lacquerware work shop where we met Anntte’s bus from the Bagan city tour. After watching the very labor-intensive process of creating a quality piece of lacquerware we went into the showroom and purchased several pieces at very reasonable prices.
After
Sesame seeds into oil
The seeds they're grinding. dinner we ended the day by being treated to a puppet show in the lounge from a couple who looked like father & daughter.
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