All I remember from my trip to Bagan in 1996 is a horse cart ride to visit a lot of temples, a day spent on the porch of my guesthouse due to what I thought was a bad stomach, and the long train and pickup truck ride it took to get there from Yangon. I also remember having to walk a long way to the only hotel that had "international" telephones.
There are still a lot of temples and it is still hard to remember what each individual temple looks like, but things have changed. We flew from Yangon to Bagan on a small prop plane and waited patiently as the luggage was carried by hand to the terminal. Our guide was a devout Buddhist and he was very eager to show us each one of the 3000+ temples.
Our hotel was located on the river which made for some lovely outdoor dining. The location was about a mile away from restaurant row - no taxis so we had had to hire a car and driver for the night if we wanted to eat somewhere other than our hotel. (We had the same problem in Mandalay.)
We arranged to spend a third day in Bagan on our own and spent the day touring more temples and the towns of New and Old Bagan by bicycle. It was a very relaxing day and a lot of fun. I spent an additional hour riding from temple to temple looking for a puppet I had seen a million times on our first day there. Of course when I was ready to buy one, they were nowhere to be found. I broke the first rule of souvenir shopping -- when you see something you want, buy it immediately because there is no guarantee you will ever see it again.
There are still a lot of temples and it is still hard to remember what each individual temple looks like, but things have changed. We flew from Yangon to Bagan on a small prop plane and waited patiently as the luggage was carried by hand to the terminal. Our guide was a devout Buddhist and he was very eager to show us each one of the 3000+ temples.
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| Our Guide
What is amazing about Bagan is not the individual temples but the fact that there are so many in such a spectacular setting (pictures to follow in another post). In between temple visits we managed a trip to the local market, a sunset cruise on the Ayeyarwady River and a horse cart ride.
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Our hotel was located on the river which made for some lovely outdoor dining. The location was about a mile away from restaurant row - no taxis so we had had to hire a car and driver for the night if we wanted to eat somewhere other than our hotel. (We had the same problem in Mandalay.)
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| These guys joined us for breakfast one morning. |
We arranged to spend a third day in Bagan on our own and spent the day touring more temples and the towns of New and Old Bagan by bicycle. It was a very relaxing day and a lot of fun. I spent an additional hour riding from temple to temple looking for a puppet I had seen a million times on our first day there. Of course when I was ready to buy one, they were nowhere to be found. I broke the first rule of souvenir shopping -- when you see something you want, buy it immediately because there is no guarantee you will ever see it again.
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