Bagan day 2

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Win Bo takes us to his village. It is a privilege to meet his neighbours and get an insight into what life is really like. He explains how expensive it now is for the villagers to buy land, and how it’s only recently that they got a piped water supply. Before that, water had to be brought up from the river by truck. Now it is pumped, either to a central water tank or, for those who can afford it, to individual homes. It still comes straight from the river, however. The older houses have thatched roofs and walls made of a lattice of bamboo, but the thatch is gradually being replaced by corrugated iron which lasts far longer than the 3-4 years that thatch lasts. It keeps out the rain better but offers poor insulation against the summer sun. More affluent buildings are made of brick and plaster.

As we walk along, Sara spots a small snake about a foot long wriggling across the road and points it out. This causes consternation, and villagers rush out with sticks. Sara moves round to take a photo but is shouted at by Win Bo who tells her not to face the snake or make eye contact with it, as it is a cobra with a potentially lethal bite. The warnings of our guide in Mandalay to keep an eye open for snakes suddenly seem more significant than we realised at the time, and we think now maybe we should not have gone blundering into the bushes to take our photos. Win Bo tells us that if you get bitten, you (or, more likely, someone else) must kill the snake (how?) and take its corpse with you to hospital so they can identify it and know which anti-venom to give you. If you don’t get treated quickly enough, you die. There is no free medical care, and medical expenses can form a significant part of the family budget. Mostly villagers will just go to the local doctor, but snake bites, and dengue fever in children, require a trip to hospital.

We visit a large house with a stable attached, where a group of novice monks, aged between 10 and 20, are resting before going out to collect alms. They are shy with us, looking away when we take photos, even though Win Bo tells us we can. One of them becomes fascinated by David’s walking boots, gently stroking a boot with his bare feet, and no doubt wondering why this white man requires such monstrous things on his feet. Rest over, they pick up their begging bowls and set off in procession through the village, collecting cooked rice as they go round. The surplus rice is loaded into the back of a pick up and sent off to the monastery. The boys apparently are then due to do some more studying – this house seems to double up as a school – but it is now time for us to move on. Win Bo leads us through the village and into the fields, which are dotted with mostly tiny stupas. He takes us to a slightly larger one, on a small mound, from which we have a wonderful, and entirely private view across the plain. “The other guides don’t know how to find these stupas”, he says. The peace is broken only by the sound of Bryan Adams, playing on the radio of the men repairing the earthquake damage to a small nearby stupa.

Back to the car, and a series of further temples that start to merge one into another in the heat which is now probably approaching 100F. One that does stand out is the Nathlaung Kyaung, a tiny Hindu temple, the only one of its sort in the whole of Bagan. Some of the temples have intricate murals, astonishingly well preserved considering they are 800 years old and have been exposed to the heat and damp for over 800 years. We stop by one of the gates into old Bagan, which was once a fully walled city with a long since dried out and only recently excavated moat.

We’re grateful to retreat to our hotel in the middle of the day, for a shower and the chance to cool down properly in a pleasingly air conditioned room. We’re much invigorated when we set out for our afternoon round of temples. The Manuhar Paya dates back to 1059 and houses three seated and one reclining Buddha, all of which were built after the temples as to fill virtually every inch of the available space. They tower up to the ceiling, with inches to spare, and there is barely space to squeeze past them, so overwhelmingly massive are they. This creates something of a bottleneck at the reclining Buddha, as monks and pilgrims jostle to get past each other.

To end the day, we head up to Lawkananda Pagoda which affords a viewpoint for yet another sunset. The pagoda itself is nothing exciting, but a glass case houses the golden umbrella that used to sit atop it before it too was damaged by the earthquake. Pilgrims have donated not just cash but also their jewellery, rubies, emeralds and diamonds, which has been reset into new sections of the umbrella. It’s odd to think of the highest value items being destined for the very top of the pagoda where nobody will ever see them. The sunset is disappointing, as the clouds have come down and there is not much sun to be seen.



Bagan has been an amazing place to visit. Many sites fail to live up to expectations, but Bagan rates up there with the Taj Mahal and the Grand Canyon in being even more impressive than it looks in pictures and documentaries.

Scroll down for more photos.

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