Bagan

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I had planned three days to explore Bagan and surroundings. Two days for the temples of Bagan and one day trip to Mount Popa. What I hadn't expected was that the weather wouldn't be its usual bright sunshine, blue sky. Instead it was overcast as you will see on the pictures with a few rain showers too. So I spent all three days exploring Bagan as there isn't much point going up a mountain in that weather. The good thing was it wasn't as hot and dusty as usual so you could go on exploring all day long.

The first two days I spent going around the countryside on an e-scooter together with Gabriel, who we'd already met in Mandalay.

It was fun and of course very interesting. You get a map (unfortunately nor I nor Gabriel were very good at reading it) and just set off. Some temples are visited by bus loads of tourists (mostly French actually) and others are deserted. Sometimes the temples are just another "ruin", sometimes you discover the most amazing paintings inside and if that's one that is actually rarely visited, it makes it all the more special.

On my third day I decided to be a bit more sportive and rented a regular bike. Also fun but by then I felt I had seen enough of Bagan, was feeling quite tired and thinking it might be time to find a beach to relax on... Was it going to be Ngapali beach or Ngwesaung beach, that was the question that remained to be answered!

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