Bagan

We were staying just outside of Old Bagan in the very backpacker friendly area of Nyaung-U, with some great places to eat western style food instead of rice or noodles; we liked both Wetherspoons (not the pub chain) for its burgers and Black Bamboo. Because of that, before we started hitting just a select few of the numerous temples, our first stop of the day was the local market. One of our fellow passengers used to be a professional buyer, so he had fun haggling with the stall holders.

Our next stop was, unsurprisingly, a temple. And rather an impressive one too. The Shwe-zi-gon Pagoda is unusual for me in that it is a gilded temple that I actually thought looked rather good. I liked the floral decorations, which were a bit different to the norm.

I know that we are all keen to get nice photos of people, and that the monks here make a particularly colourful photo, but I always feel a little uncomfortable if taking the photo becomes intrusive or seems to be influencing the person's behaviour. This picture of everyone  photographing the young monk, who as a result spent ages posing for them, is the sort of thing I generally try to avoid.


This temple also had a lot of small stone carved panels around the outside, telling stories from Bhudda's lives. Myo told us a couple, but strangely the one that sticks in the mind was the one about the jackal eating the elephant.

The story goes that the hungry jackal found an elephant carcass, but found it too tough and unpleasant to eat until it got to the anus, which was softer. He chewed his way through the anus, into the elephant's stomach, where he started eating the insides. Figuring the carcass could be both shelter and food, the jackal decided to stay inside, but when the sun came out it dried out the hide, causing the hole he had made to close up, and with him being bigger from having eaten so much, he was trapped inside. Only the morning dew the next day saved him, by softening the hide enough for him to escape. But in doing so he lost all of his hair. The close call made the jackal realise he must never be so greedy again, which is the moral of the story.

Our second stop was a lacquer work place, where we saw them splitting the bamboo whilst holding it between their toes, using that bamboo to make the form of the object,  and then applying the sticky black thayo, or lacquer, by hand. The lacquer is made by mixing sap from the Thit-si tree with ash, and they apply at least seven layers, each time having to let it dry for about a week and sandpapering it to make sure it is perfectly smooth.

Once enough layers are added, the hand engrave the pattern and apply the colour or gold decoration. As ever with these crafts, they may be more expensive to buy than you first expected, but once you see the intricate, skilled and lengthy process required to make an item, you can much better appreciate why.

Our next stop was the U-pali-thein temple, which was didn't look especially promising from the outside, but has some beautiful, if a bit faded, murals inside. Sadly, no photographs were allowed.

Our next temple, Hit-lo-min-lo also had some murals inside but not nearly as impressive, but the outside was good.

I don't know the name of the next set of pagoda that we stopped at, they were around the Min Myaw Yaza area, but they were a very picturesque group of the old stone type that I like so much, with the added benefit of some brightly coloured bougainvilleas to liven up the view.

By this time we had earned some lunch, which we had at The Moon - Be Kind to Animals, an excellent vegetarian restaurant where I had some really good tempura. This one is recommended by lonely planet, which the one across the street, also calling itself Be Kind To Animals, seems to be hoping to cash in on. That one may be good too, but I can vouch for only the first one.


Refreshed, we headed for the Ananda Temple. It is supposed to be a very good site, with well regarded, artworks inside, but I didn't like it much. It looked a bit austere to me.

The That-byin-nyu temple was another that didn't allow inside photos. It is the tallest of the temples here at just over 200 feet.

Our next stop was the pairing of the Gu Byauk Gyi and Mya Zedi temples, two quite different looking temples that had some lovely stone work. However by this time I have to say I was flagging a bit. It is well worth getting around the temples in Bagan, but on a hot day it can get pretty tiring.

This was a good spot for a quick group photo, with Xara having a nice place to park in front of the range of temples.


Our next stop was a bit of a rush as we had a sunset deadline. Dhamma Yan Dyi pagoda is another big one and, as it is apparently not so exciting on the inside, we just took a look around, and left the inside to the horde of Chinese tourists all wearing their bright green tour group hats. That seems to be a common approach for Chinese tour groups, having a hat or t-shirt that they all wear.

This is a strange photo to add I know, but I quite liked all of the footprints in the sand. Shoes and socks have to be taken off to go into the temple or other religious areas, so people are often barefoot.

Our final stop was at the Shwe San Daw pagoda, which we clambered up - so of us not so high as others - to watch the sunset over the spires of the various temples and stupas.

A Balloon over Bagan

When I said we had an early morning, I wasn't kidding. We had to be ready in the lobby for a pick-up at 5:45am. But it was all worthwhile, as we had treated ourselves to a hot air balloon ride.

The company that we were with was Balloons Over Bagan, and they collected us in fabulous old buses, which we instantly decided that we wanted one of to kit out for overlanding. Totally impractical of course, but they looked great.

At the launch site, we had teas and biscuits while we watched them get the balloons ready. As sunrise approached, we met our pilot Elly, had our safety briefing, and then piled into the balloon.

There were sixteen people to a basket.  The huge basket had five sections, laid out like an H. The centre section was for Elly and the four gas bottles. The others were for passengers, four in each. Clambering in is a feat in itself, especially trying to avoid kicking anyone, but once you're in, it is fine.


Elly kept the balloon nice and low for us, so we had a great view of the temples.  And there are a lot of temples. Bagan was the royal city from the 10th century up until 1287, when bad diplomacy with the Mongols caused them to flee the city. The various Kings during that period went a bit wild building temples and pagodas.  At the city's prime, it would have had over ten thousand of them.

 
 These days, lack of upkeep after the city was abandoned and some devastating earthquakes have reduced their number to around a mere two thousand, many of which are the beautiful old red brick variety, so they look stunning. Little wonder then, that between the three companies based here, there were about seventeen balloons up in the air, and they do that every day.

As ever, my commitment to taking photos comes a poor third to actually looking at the view and enjoying the experience, and I still only use my little compact, so the photos here do absolutely no justice to the real thing.

Once we had crossed the city and the temple density had started to dwindle, Elly expertly - and very gently - set us down in an empty plot of land. The crew had us safely moored in no time, so we were quickly out and enjoying our post flight breakfast of champagne, croissants and fresh fruits.  Just as well Nic and I were finally feeling better.

Breakfast over, it was back onto the old buses and back to our hotel, arriving just in time to meet up with the group for a day of sightseeing at ground level.

A boat to Bagan

It was a bumpy drive on the truck this morning, and as I was still feeling pretty delicate - bucket still to hand but thankfully not used - it was almost a relief to be to told that we were getting on a boat again. And as regular readers will know, I'm not generally too happy about the boats in Myanmar.

As it turned out, the boats were actually OK this time, as they were the bigger ferry boat style rather than the narrow ones. At our boarding point in Pakokku they clearly had experience of western tour groups, indeed they were unloading a small coachload and their baggage onto boats while we were there, but we were a different matter with our truck, and we soon had our usual crowd of watchers.

The boat trip took us along the Ayeyarwaddy River and into Bagan. There were a few other river users out fishing etc, but in the main, the journey was not especially interesting until we had Bagan and it's temples in sight.

So for some of the trip, our local guide Myo kept us amused by showing us how to wear the longhi, and some other things it can be used for. The longhi is the skirt like piece of clothing worn by most people in Myanmar. Men and women wear different colours and patterns, and the fabrics and designs vary by region and tribal background.

For the ladies, it is worn in a simple wrap around style, similar to a sarong, so can just be a straightforward length of fabric, but more often it is the same format as the men have, which is sewn up at the side to create a tube of fabric about twice the width of a normal skirt. The men wear theirs differently by gathering the loose fabric at the front and knotting it there, creating a bunched effect.

But it was the other uses that we found more amusing. Some were practical, such as the rolling it up and using it as the base for carrying things on your head, for making a hammock to swing your baby in, or even a baby carrier.

We of course, preferred the ones where he would use it as a cape and pretend to be superman, use it as a ninja outfit, or even to create the ears and trunk of an elephant.

As we got close to Bagan, the scenery finally captured our attention as we saw the first views of just some of the beautiful stone pagodas that have made Bagan such a popular destination.

Once we made it to our hotel, we a quiet evening to help us get over our remaining sickness, and an early night as Nic and I had an early morning ahead.