Waking up at 4am meant we landed in Bagan to see the sun rising over its iconic ancient temples.
With check-in not until 2 o'clock, we had 6 hours of full on site seeing before taking a rest... First we explored the district of Nyaung, a busy working area offering a direct contrast between Myanmar's local communities, their horse carts, huge food markets, unmarked dirt track roads and buses with people and small animals hanging off the roof, with the country's gradual modernisation with up and coming businesses, tour guides and postcards appearing on the road side.
Our guide, Tsa Tsa, was keen to learn better English and she had some way to go, so we spent much of our three days teaching her how to pronounce temple instead of tampur and billage instead of billy. All the locals were keen to practice their English with 'the native speaker'. A young girl wearing an Aung San Su Kyi tshirt was very over excited to see us and asked if she could practice English with me.
On our first night we took an a horse cart ride with a lovely boy from one of the local villages. He was so kind, so thoughtful and extremely conscientious. He was horrified when we 'broke down' in the middle of the dusty fields, but it just made the whole experience more fun. He took us to a huge temple which we climbed to get a view of the extraordinary landscape at sunset.
Day 2 brought is more stunning temples, learning about the differing Buddha styles, peeking in at a lacquerware workshop (for which Bagan is famous), a spot of shopping and lunch, obvs.. In the evening we took a private boat down the Irrawaddy from our hotel to take in the sunset with tea and these amazing tamarind sweets which I've become addicted to...
Day 3 we bravely hired bikes to explore the town and countryside a little further, riding along sandy tracks, through fields of temples surrounded by lush green huge green plants and bouganvillia. The afternoon? A much needed rest by the pool - feeling a little 'templed out'...
Also managed to finish Burmese Days, you can read my review here.
Next stop, Mandalay, the opening setting for my next read - The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh.
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