Blogs from Bagan, Mandalay Region, Burma, Asia - page 4

Day 11-Saturday-January 23 After breakfast this morning we arrived in Yandabo, a small rustic village on the bank of the Ayeyarwady River in the Mandalay Region. We had a very interesting docking process! The boat could only get close enough for the crew to put out a long gangway by getting into the water and extending it to the shore. There was a very short wooden dock that a small primitive ‘ferry’ type service boat could pull up to and pick up or drop off people with goods or small motorbikes. Yandabo is famous for an Anglo-Burmese peace treaty that was signed in 1826. It is also known for making finely crafted terracotta pottery. Our excursion this morning was a walking tour that took us into the village where we watched a lady and her niece ... read more

Arriving on the night bus from Yangon meant that I got into Bagan just in time to tag along with a small group of fellow travellers staying at the same hostel to go and see the sun rise above the hundreds and hundreds of Buddhist temples and pagodas standing tall over the Bagan plains. I arrived blurry-eyed and definitely not bushy-tailed but I was with it just enough to jump on one of Bagan's super fun electric scooters and follow the others who knew where they were going. We travelled towards Old Bagan and then swerved off the main road, down a dirt track for about 200 metres. There we parked up and climbed one of the taller pagodas (I wonder how much longer they'll let people do that!), and from the top I stood, and ... read more

Today was another early start as we had to catch our plane at 9am. Well that is what we thought until we got to the airport and had to wait 2hrs due to fog in Bagan. Well the wait was worth it. We were in Bagan just after 12. We checked into our nice hotel and then across the street to find a ebike for 2. We got on our ebike and off we went. The pictures say it all and left us in awe as this area is unbelievable and we'll worth the wait.... read more

After seven years of living and working in Asia, I've seen a lot of temples. Many say that once you've seen one temple, you've seen them all; there is a lot of similarity between them. But Bagan was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. An area of about 42 square km (16 square miles), it's filled with temples. Temples as far as the eye can see in any direction. Approximately 2200 to be more specific.(There used to be many, many more.) As my Dutch friend and I rode through them, exploring one after another, we repeatedly commented on how surreal it felt. Like we were in a magical place we couldn't have imagined. Or like we were in a dream. Or in a movie. Except that we could actually reach out and touch them, feel them ... read more

I can’t remember when was the last time I was so excited and nervous about visiting a certain place. Well, I mean before visiting Bagan. Actually I am always a bit excited, because travelling is my biggest passion. But this time I had a different feeling, the few photos that I saw looked amazing, and the fact that is still largely avoided by tourists gave it a sense of a mystery. There is not much mystery about it, the place is simply unbelievable. My visit to Bagan was a real luxury. We stayed in the middle of the forest, in a gorgeous hotel, not so far from the temples. Every day we would rent regular and electric bikes and wonder around Bagan from morning till late evening. Quite often we would find ourselves being alone in ... read more