The city of temples
I arrived in Bagan at 4am and in true Asia style we got hounded by the taxi drivers as we exited the bus. Bargaining with taxi drivers at ridiculous o'clock in the morning is my least favourite thing to do! But I paid my 25000 Kyat (162 SEK/ €16) visitor fee and then I got a mattress on the floor for 10000 Kyat (65 SEK/€6.5) in a busy hostel. After a few hours of sleep I hired a bicycle and headed off to explore some temples.
In the end I estimated that I did 25-30km around Bagan and countless temples. I wish I could tell you the names of everyone I visited but understandable they were not all marked on the map and many of the smaller ones only had their name written in Burmese.
But my favourites were the ones that were made of red brick, I felt as they had more character on the inside than the other temples though they were all magnificent from the outside and the views over the area were stunning.
In the afternoon I stopped in a little village called Minnantha. A young girl offered to give me a tour of the village. She showed me the little kitchen with no electricity, where they fed the cows, made scarfs and traditional Burmese cigars that the older women smoked.
I ended my day by watching the sunset from Pyathada pagoda where I once again modelled with the locals but this time I asked for a photo with them in return. They all wanted to stand close to me and one of them even sniffed me before I left!
After the sunset I cycled as quickly as I could and dared through the sand tracks, trying not to slide in the loose sand or hit a rock. The aim was to get out to the paved roads (which were few, narrow and covered in potholes) before it got completely dark as I didn't have a light on my bike.
Bagan was truly an amazing experience and filled with so much beauty. I really liked going around on a bicycle as you could really appreciate the surrounding in a different way then if you speed past on a scooter or worse in a car. But alternatively you can also choose to explore the area by horse and carriage and of course the famous sunrise hot air ballons. I chose to only spend one day there as I was fairly templed out (and had a sore bum after all that cycling) and there is not much else to do in Bagan but then again when you have 4000 temples to explore I suppose everything else fades in comparison.
In the end I estimated that I did 25-30km around Bagan and countless temples. I wish I could tell you the names of everyone I visited but understandable they were not all marked on the map and many of the smaller ones only had their name written in Burmese.
But my favourites were the ones that were made of red brick, I felt as they had more character on the inside than the other temples though they were all magnificent from the outside and the views over the area were stunning.
In the afternoon I stopped in a little village called Minnantha. A young girl offered to give me a tour of the village. She showed me the little kitchen with no electricity, where they fed the cows, made scarfs and traditional Burmese cigars that the older women smoked.
I ended my day by watching the sunset from Pyathada pagoda where I once again modelled with the locals but this time I asked for a photo with them in return. They all wanted to stand close to me and one of them even sniffed me before I left!
After the sunset I cycled as quickly as I could and dared through the sand tracks, trying not to slide in the loose sand or hit a rock. The aim was to get out to the paved roads (which were few, narrow and covered in potholes) before it got completely dark as I didn't have a light on my bike.
Bagan was truly an amazing experience and filled with so much beauty. I really liked going around on a bicycle as you could really appreciate the surrounding in a different way then if you speed past on a scooter or worse in a car. But alternatively you can also choose to explore the area by horse and carriage and of course the famous sunrise hot air ballons. I chose to only spend one day there as I was fairly templed out (and had a sore bum after all that cycling) and there is not much else to do in Bagan but then again when you have 4000 temples to explore I suppose everything else fades in comparison.
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