Evening explorations

---

Thursday eve 19th Oct
As I had a couple of hours before I need to sleep I thought I would walk the 10 minutes up the road to the large seated Buddha and maybe on to the reclining one.
In half hour I am back. According to the map I reached the steps up to it so took my flip flops off and rustled in my bag for the camera. Dogs came to see if something was for them but did not come too close. As I climbed the steps other dogs began barking and coming down towards me - a man shooed them away but as I reached the top more came and seemed quite aggressive. I could not see what was in the buildings but to the right may have been the Buddha. That room had barriers at the entrances. I was wondering what to do, especially about the dogs as they were now barring my return.
A Monk came out of a building behind them and over to me. He beckoned me to follow him, I noticed he had flip flops on and he indicated that I should put mine on. I thought he was taking me to the Buddha but he led me down steps similar to the ones I'd come up, back to the street. En route he asked where I come from and where I am going. I said ‘Chauk tingi’ which i thought was the reclining Buddha but he did not understand. At this stage I just named the hotel. As we reached the street I could see lights and stalls to the left. The monk waved me to the right and repeated ‘Clover Hotel’ as he walked uphill to the left. It seemed expedient after the dog encounters to walk back. A lesson learned for later on my trip particularly in Bagan as others have noted them in their blogs.
Most of the way I'd used my torch and there is so little light that the video cam did not show anything. I did however, record nuns chanting and caught a glimpse of one.

The dogs and chanting are on this video clip ...

---