Sunday, October 23, 2011

Bagan

We decided to take the boat to Bagan.  It’s a 14hr journey by slow boat, departing at around 5am.  I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the journey to be honest, but thought it might be a good way to see the countryside.  When we boarded the boat at Mandalay it was pretty busy.  There were plastic seats available, apparently only for foreigners.  I grabbed a couple and moved them to what I thought was a good spot, in the shade facing shore.  The journey was ok at first, and then the drip started.  There was a build up of water above my head and some choice holes perfectly placed to give me a soaking.  This wasn’t a problem when the boat was stationary, but when it started to move, the drip became a trickle and from time to time, a torrent.  There were some Australian girls situated near the drip hole who were chairless and had to sit on the floor.  After a while they decided enough was enough and moved to another side of the boat.  This gave me a bit more room to try and avoid the water.  After a few hours in the heat of the sun the water evaporated and I could relax.  


Relaxing on the Boat
 It was an unusual boat trip, every stop swarms of Burmese fruit and food sellers would get onboard and try and give the hard sell to anybody that didn’t already have food.  The locals onboard were very friendly and very curious of us.  The brave ones would try and interact with some of the westerners onboard, in my tired and grumpy wet state I wasn’t really in the mood and kept to my own wee corner while watching the language barrier being broken down on the odd few occasions.  At one point I went downstairs and noticed some live cargo, about a hundred little ducklings chirping away in a wooden box.

 
The scenery was pretty special too.  We must have past about a hundred pagodas en-route, some seemed unfeasibly remote miles away from the nearest town. 

We arrived in Bagan a bit earlier than expected, just after sunset.  Before we left Mandalay we arranged accommodation in Bagan and also a horse and cart to pick us up from the port.  Horse and carts are a common mode of transport in Bagan, where a lot of the roads are sandy dusty narrow paths.  When we arrived we found our driver waiting for us with a name sign, the second time this happened in Burma.  We jumped on and he took us to our hotel.  He was a nice guy and we arranged him to pick us up the next day and give us a tour around the temples.
On the Wagon
Imagine all the medieval cathedrals built in Europe on an area the size of Manhattan, and then you get an idea of the magnitude of the construction in Bagan.  There were 4400 temples built over a 230 year period on the riverside plain.  The first temple our guide took us to was one that we could climb up.  The temple was perfectly positioned for our first stop, right in the heart of Bagan with a great 360 degrees panorama.  The view was breath taking, probably one of the best views I have ever seen.  Everywhere you looked you could see temples, as far as the eye could see.  Some were mere simple stupas, while others were of grand design with ornate towering spires.  None of the temples individually are of colossal proportions, it’s the sheer number of them that is remarkable.  It helps that the landscape is fairly flat and barren every direction the temples are visible. 

The Temples of Bagan

 

Our guide took us round the biggest and most famous temples during are day tour.  The most famous one of the lot is Ananda, one of the largest and best preserved temples of Bagan.  It has an imposing 52m high corncob golden spire in the centre, with four more gilded spires on the end of a raised square platform.  Like most temples in Bagan it is terraced and it’s possible to climb up to the top, although the upper floors are closed to visitors.  As an individual entity it’s nice to look at and fairly impressive in stature, but just not outstanding.  Our favourite temples of Bagan were the ones we could climb to the top, with amazing views.  It just goes to show that’s it’s the vast number of temples that’s the exceptional feature of Bagan. 

Ananda

Temple Climbing
When we left in the morning I spotted a sign for palm wine on our way to the first temple.  Palm wine is popular in West Africa, and I’ve sampled it on a few occasions and really enjoy it.  It’s 100% natural palm sap, with no additional ingredients.  After collection, the palm sap immediately starts to react with natural yeasts in the air and ferments.  If bottled it even begins to become fizzy with carbon dioxide being produced in the secondary fermentation process.  So when I saw the sign for toddy (palm wine) shop, I informed our guide that we’d like to buy some at the end of the tour.  The horse and cart just managed to squeeze up the narrow path to the toddy shop.  The shop was a small basic hut with a bar attached, they didn’t sell anything else apart from palm wine.  When we arrived we got a wee sample of the toddy in a coconut shell to try, it tasted ok, and so we bought a couple of bottles and went home.  

The next couple of days we hired bikes to cycle around the temples and explore.  Bagan is hot, we were there during the cool season, and it still hit 35 degrees every day, it tops 45 in summer!  It’s hard work cycling around on sandy roads in the baking heat.  So, we would normally have an early start and come back for an extended lunch break and head out again in the late afternoon.  We visited most of the main temples again and also visited some off the beaten track taking advantage of the freedom that bicycles allow.  

We tried to find somewhere quiet for sunset on our first day cycling, we thought the first temple we visited with our tour guide would be ideal.  We were a bit late to arrive at our temple of choice and there was a tour bus parked outside with a dozen people at the top.  We found another temple nearby to take in the view.  The next day we arrived at our temple of preference earlier, got prime positions and watched the sunset.  We spent about an hour taking in the stunning scene, until the sun dipped behind the mountains in the distance and it started to get bit dark.  As we didn’t have lights for our bikes this signalled that it was time for us to make the journey back to our Hotel.  I managed to get a puncture which was unfortunate as we were a few miles away, it took a great deal more effort cycling home with a flat and I was exhausted by the time I returned.

Bagan was more geared up for tourists than the other cities we had visited in Burma.  There were a variety of restaurants serving Thai, Indian and Italian food.  Up until this point we had only been eating Burmese food, which in itself can be pretty tasty, but it was good to get a change.  The nightlife was still non-existent but that was fine for us as this helped facilitate our early starts.

We spent four days in Bagan, but I could have spent more.  It was a relaxing place, and a good break from our recent city stays.  There was still plenty more to see and do, I could have stayed just to watch another couple of spectacular sunsets.  But as we had a fixed return flight we had a tight schedule in Burma, and it was time to move on.

We got the bus back to Mandalay, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience.  The first 20 or so miles of the road were paved, but the rest was rough sandy and muddy.  This wasn’t enough to put the driver off going at full throttle, which led to an incredibly bumpy ride.  After seven long hours we finally arrived in Mandalay. 

Shan Food
When we arrived we had a meal at our favourite restaurant, an eatery serving Shan food.  It was kind of buffet style, so we could see exactly what we were getting which is handy when menus aren’t in English.  You would choose a few dishes, the staff would then put them into boils and bring rice and a soup accompaniment.  The food in the Shan restaurant was good and they also showed football so we could combine dinner with our night’s entertainment.

Nev Looking Grump After Dinner

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