Temple-tastic Bagan

I finally got back to Yangon where Emm arrived that night. True to form, we kicked things off the next day with a Lonely Planet Walking Tour! It was nice to get more of a feel for the city and meet more locals but I was still left with the impression that it’s quite a run-down place.

Sule Paya

Book stalls on the street

Locals tucking into some street food

Still not the most attractive city though!

Walking was also very hot so we needed to treat ourselves to a nice lunch and cold beer in the famous colonial-era Strand Hotel, which once hosted Rudyard Kipling and George Orwell.

Beer and air con - phew!

That evening we headed to the bus station to take an overnight bus up to the ancient city of Bagan.

Bagan was once the capital of the kingdom of Pagan, the first kingdom to unify the regions which would later constitute modern-day Myanmar. Between the 11th and 13th centuries Bagan’s kings commissioned over 4000 Buddhist temples here. Later it was ransacked by the Mongols and the Bamar people abandoned it. The area was reminiscent of Angkor in many ways as these (now heavily restored) temples are all that remains of what was once a great city. The rest, like houses and monasteries would have been built of wood so have to be left to the imagination!

Most local transport in Bagan (for tourists at least), is horse and cart. Upon our arrival at 5am we were collected in one of these and taken to our hotel, but since it was too early to check in, we decided to head straight back out and watch the sunrise, at Buledi temple.

Sunrise over the plains of Bagan

It was quite a different experience to Angkor Wat – there were many more small temples and stupas scattered right across the plain as far as the eye could see.

Temple-tastic

And another one

Later that day we took a horse and cart around to visit several more of the temples, including Ananda Pahto (the biggest temple), Thatbyinnyu (the highest), Nathlaung Kyaung (the only Hindu temple) and too many more to remember! They were nice to see and many had interesting Buddha statues and murals inside, however unlike at Angkor Wat, there were no individual stand-outs.

Our vehicle for the afternoon

Ananda Pahto

One of four large Buddhas inside Ananda Pahto

Not sure which one this is, but it looks nice!

The next day we’d booked a car and driver to take us up to Mount Popa – an extinct volcano with a revered Buddhist temple on its lower slopes. Unfortunately we were woken at 7am by the sound of torrential rain outside. However since it wouldn't have been much fun to visit the temples in that weather either, we decided to still go ahead with our trip. It took an hour to get there and although the rain stopped, the visibility got progressively worse. When we stopped at a viewpoint for our first glimpse of the temple, this is what we saw:

Mount Popa "view"

Still, we’d gone all that way so we decided to climb the 777 covered steps to the top anyway. Unfortunately it wasn't a very pleasant experience and memorable for all the wrong reasons – the area is rife with monkeys and the steps were absolutely covered (and slippery) with their excrement! And of course since it was a religious monument we had to take off our shoes and socks…

Grrrr, monkeys. *shakes fist*

Visibility may have been poor, but there was no chance of us losing each other

That afternoon we visited some more of the temples by horse and cart.

Starting to get a little temple-d out...

Double Buddha!

The next day we left Bagan for Mandalay. We had decided to go by ferry: a 12-hour journey along the Irrawaddy River. It was a very pleasant journey and a lovely and relaxing way to spend a day: just eating, drinking, reading and watching the world go by.

Leaving Bagan at dawn...

This is the life!

Life on the river banks

Arriving into Mandalay as the sun set