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Published: November 17th 2013
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It's Wednesday, Nov 13 and we are leaving Yangon. First, we need to change some more money and then we are going to our favorite restaurant, Swel for a goodbye lunch. The waiters at Swel have been very attentive and looked after us for the past three days. On our way to the restaurant I am almost bowled over by a 10 year old on a giant bike with no brakes. It could have been seriously nasty, but even though he hit me there is no damage. We again have fried prawn and a sweet and sour chicken. The prawn is amazing there are 10 giant prawn and the whole meal cost us around $15.00. After this we wander back to the hotel and read our kindles, while we wait for our taxi to take us for the overnight bus to Bagan.
Thankfully, our taxi finds the correct bus, the place is a zoo with no order, it's like a large asian market area with buses spread around. The bus fare to Bagan is $15 US and takes around 10 hours. This is a major mistake, I think I am getting too old for overnight bus trips. Malcolm
has had a little more forethought than I, and has brought warm clothes. Although,at one stage he is sitting with a plastic bagI on his head, I on the other hand am in a polo shirt and shorts. The air conditioning is cold and the ducts are often broken and cant be turned down..... And my warm clothes are buried in the hold behind boxes and foodstuffs. Locals who take the bus are bundled up in winter coats and blankets. You get the picture! We finally arrive in Bagan. It's 4.30am, I'm cold, and slightly irritable, but we have made it and our hotel is only a 10 minute walk from our hotel, Aung Mangalar. Unfortunately for us, the hotel is full and we have to wait until midday to get into our room. Time for breakfast, we have a local breakfast of rice, chicken, fried egg and coffee. Then, we walk for what seems to be 25 minutes to get a view of the temples. Spectacular, we climb to the top of one of them and feast our eyes on ancient Bagan. Temples and Religious structures litter the landscape.
12.00 we check into the hotel, it's
basic and we think overpriced and deserves a negative comment on Tripadvisor. They even charge $1 for an hour of internet....... A shower and a couple of hours sleep, we head out for a beer and a meal. Tourist cafes are all over the place, and we pick a local cafe that doesn't dabble in Western food “The Puppet restaurant” . A full meal costs 7000 Kyet that's $3.50 each. We now have four words, hello, goodbye, thank you and delicious, but the question is, will we still have them in the morning?
It's Friday, and I have a bit of a sore throat, there had been lots of coughing on the bus, so I probably picked up a nasty Burmese bug. There have been prayers and chanting blaring from the local temple all night long. However, the both of us had pretty good sleeps. Today, a horse and trap booked for ten hours to take us on a leisurely jaunt around the Wats.
The temples and stupas in Bagan date from around 1200 AD and are all that remain of a huge city. All of the wooden buildings that housed the people are
long gone. Viewpoints on why the city is gone abound, from Mongol invasion to the threat of invasion by China. Who knows? Temples and religious structures are everywhere and at one time there were over 4000, however an earthquake in 1975 destroyed approximately 2000. Many are in different states of refurbishment and/or decay. Today, Bagan is a Unesco heritage site. The place is amazing, our horse and cart takes us on a standard tour around the biggest and most popular of the temples. And as soon as we get down from our cart, we are accosted by sellers with paintings, Buddha heads, gems, and lacquer ware. Even though we say “No”, the sellers take it all in their stride and maintain a good sense of humor. Our driver , a nice young man chews betel nut and as with many Burmese has badly stained teeth. He tells me he likes Korean Girls, I tell him he has no chance of a Korean girl putting her tongue in his mouth until he stops chewing the betel. All the girls selling souvenirs speak excellent English and we really feel sorry not buying something from all of them. At the penultimate temple a
boy of approx 10 takes us around and points out things of note, he speaks English very well and when I offer him some money at the end of the tour he tells me he “doesn't want my money”, unless I buy something. As evening approaches, we climb to the top of sunset temple to watch the sun go down. I am next to a young Irish couple that live in Wellington, I commiserate and take lots of photos of temples in silhouette. In the evening we go out for a few beers and a curry.
Saturday, Nov 16. I haven't had a good sleep as the loud speaker at the temple across the road has been belting out prayers all night. It seems that this goes on for the whole of November, 24 hours a day, I don't know how the locals put up with it. Today, we have arranged to hire electric bikes, and once versed in the intricacies of riding them are off to explore more temples. The bikes are wonderful, better than pedal-power and so much better than walking. We stop at one of the temples where we had promised to
give some girls Fiji and NZ money, unfortunately we are again surrounded and all of them want Fiji or New Zealand money for their collections. A final picture with some of the girls and we are off on our bikes. In the afternoon, we find a restaurant by the Irrawaddy River and have a couple of beers before returning into town to check out an art exhibition by seven prominent Asian artists. Several of the paintings are of Aung San Suu Kii and show her under constraint or behind barbed wire. We chat for a while and tell the guys how much we admire their work, then have the requisite photo and back to the hotel.
Sunday, Nov 17. There is a major festival in town. Our friend on the loud speaker woke me up in the middle of the night and I finally resorted to toilet paper ear plugs to cut out most of the sound. It worked! Then the morning is taken up by going to the temple. People have come from all around for this festival, there are buses and lorries packed with villagers who are now on their way back home. We should
have been up at 6.00am too see the start of the festival, however we have breakfast and slowly meander down to the temple at 8.00am. We have missed the major ceremonies, but are still able to see the handouts. Today, all of the Buddhist Monks line up and are given food, blankets and money. Monks leave the temple a little bit richer, for the time being at least. “It's good to give”, is the mantra of the local people and we even see a family handing out extra stuff to the monks. Religion is a weird and sometimes wonderful thing! Today, brings the inevitable coaches, there are lots of tourists taking photo's and I am just one of them........
My final thoughts on Bagan. A tourist entrance fee of $15 is charged for all foreign tourists that appear, whether by boat or plane. This is collected by the Govt. and it would seem that very little if any is returned to the local community. Stall owners have told us that they also pay for the space at the temples to sell there wares and feel that it is excessive. Bagan is an amazing historical site
that I am glad to have seen before it becomes Tourist Hell! The tour buses have started to arrive, but they only appear to do four or five of the largest more ornate temples. At this point in time you can still walk around the less popular complexes and see no one. Begging is almost non-existant, however we were asked for “hello money” by a couple of children. I think this will become common place. The sellers are not too aggressive and still maintain a cheerful outlook if and when you say “No”, this also will change. Prices are still very reasonable except for the hotels and as more tourists appear the hotels will have to raise their game considerable. Overall, I have had a very positive experience in Bagan and I think Malcolm would concur!
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Caroline
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Photo ops
I LOVE the photo of the umbrellas. Nice...