13th January Bagan - MYANMAR (BURMA)

January 13th Bagan - MYANMAR (BURMA)


Another late starting lazy morning and the past 36 days is catching up with us now. We have slowed down and we are pretty much ready for a few days on the beach.  None of us really want it to end but after this much travel, we probably need to.

However we couldn’t just sit and do nothing in this fantastic place so, in the afternoon we went to hire bikes to cycle round some of the temples and explore off the beaten track a bit.

This proved to be fun….the hotel bikes all had flat tyres or very odd saddles, so we went to a place next door to hire from them for the princely sum of $2 each.

We had more luck here as the guy at least had a spanner to adjust the height and saddles although the bikes were still wrecks.

They also had some electric bikes which being lazy Paul and Steve thought might be fun but Janette and Mandy were just being whimps and didnt want them. Janette tried one and shot off across the sand clearly not having worked out how to brake and the hire man suggested having watched her maiden flight that we stick to the pushbikes...we all agreed.

Off we set not having been on bikes for a considerable while so after a few wobbles we soon got into the rhythm and wound our way through some of the temples. 

Farming goes on amongst all of the archaeological site and as usual

Its harder than I thought !!

It was baking hot and after about an hour and a half cycling Steve managed to identify the restaurant on the riverbank we had visited the day before so off we set down the track to have cold drinks in the shade by the river. 

Its harder than I thought !!

By that time (about 1 mile from where we started from) it was pretty much time to turn round and come back as the bikes had no lights so we needed to be back by sunset. We wobbled slowly home amid the temples and horse and carts and managed to arrive with no major casualties and 4 sore backsides apart from Mandy’s hat which blew off and got run over by a truck. (obviously she was going too fast !!!!)

We concluded that bikes now need to be added to Mandy's considerable list of transport methods most feared having rejected the electric bikes in favour of the bog standard bikes.

Eventually, we work out how to ride a bike !!! The area is circumvented by around 10 miles of road but every few hundred yards or so is a track that you can walk, cycle or even drive down.  Farming goes on amongst all of the archeological site and as usual, all the locals are happy to see us, friendly and generous.

Just back to the room and Steve’s new best photography mate calls to say there was a photograph he wanted to show Steve yesterday but he needed to light it and his generator was broken but he had now had it fixed and offered to come and get Steve to go and take this last shots of this stunning area. Off he headed into the sunset to find not only did he have a lighting crew but also the photographer and the baby monk !!  A full film crew (of sorts) ….some great photographs again and another off the wall Myanmar experience.

The reclining Buddha - we've seen many hundreds of these but never like this filthy and and un-loved!!.  We had the key to the stupa.All of these Buddhas were beautiful in our photo lighting as there was no windows or lights but all were covered in many inches of dust after many years of neglect.  We felt it was a great honour that our guide managed to get the keys for the buiding for us to get a glimpse.  The images below were all hidden in the same building...utterly incomprehensible but some amazing photography was done. 

This staggering sitting Buddha - our mini monk is actually sitting in about 6 inches of dust to allow the many tens of photos to be taken.  Visitors are not allowed here as it is the middle of restoration.

Tomorrow we break camp again and head for our last destination in Myanmar, Ngapali Beach for a few days R and R before heading back to Bangkok.

Ngpali beach is the resort side of Myanmar in the south.  We had  booked three nights of indulgence before we came home.

The street kids sometimes cannot afford to buy a few post cards to see (5 for a dollar) so they make their own.  Janette and Mandy had bought some and we always gave them 5 dollars for 5 but they have no idea how much more appealing these are than "same old same old" cards.  The signs of the beginning of an early tourism industry...

So we leave Bagan in the morning for our fairly early flight on a crop duster plane for our final Burma location and sadly our last.  Its with great sadness that we leave Bagan and Burma.