Bagan

Bagan

We had booked a 10hr boat trip to take us from Mandalay to Bagan our next destination so it was an early start then a taxi to the pier. Here we boarded on to a medium sized boat via some very slippery and steep stone steps down to some narrow, wobbly wooden planks over the water.

It was all tourists on board and we were the only Brits so we staked our claim to the best seats on the upper deck and made them more comfy using some life jackets as seat cushions! Luckily the boat held 90 passengers but with only 18 on board we had the sun deck to ourselves as most of the other 16 were from Saga holidays so slept below.

Daz won the knobbly knee contest on the sundeck.

The trip was comfortable and we got fed breakfast and lunch as well as being kept hydrated with an endless supply of green tea or coffee. It was a company without any reviews so we had been nervous but it turned out to be really good and the time flew by easily. Late afternoon arrived and we were at Bagan! A slightly nervous crossing ashore via a single, very wobbly plank (luckily our balance is fairly good so no wet rucksacks!!).

Next, due to an English/Burmese translation problem, we ended up in the back of a horse & cart ‘taxi’ to get to our guesthouse. Well the horse looked ready to retire before we even set off so the ‘driver’, Mr No Teeth, had to give him plenty of encouragement with some taps of his stick and loud ‘Hurgh’ noises. It was painfully slow and the cart was tipping us back threatening to dump us into the road so we were glad when we eventually arrived at our digs.

You can't take the pikey out of the traveller.

 We checked in and shown to our room which was a basic affair with twin beds, fridge, no storage and a TV which was all the rage 20 yrs ago! (plus it was all Burmese TV channels!). Unfortunately the t.v. blew up after the 1^st night when we had a power surge so we had to do without that.

Bagan is very backward compared to Mandalay’s big city affair – dusty dirt roads, only small shops (no supermarkets or mini marts) and the best bit, all tourists need to get around one of three ways – on foot, on bicycle or an electric (‘E’) bike! The first night we chose on foot just to walk to the main restaurant street which was nerve racking in the dark with no proper footpaths and traffic whizzing within inches of us. As our country’s history with Burma hasn’t always been a mutually happy one, we took to telling the locals that we were from Iceland (as they always ask) which has provided a lot of amusement as none of them know where it is or what to say to us afterwards! We have continued this practise and recently some guy thought it meant we spoke Irish! Oh well……

Both these subjects had clearly taken too many happy pills.

Anyway, we had come here to see the endless temples doted over a large area of Bagan so we hired an E bike and off we went, Daz driving and me seated on a ‘pad’ on the rear rack as the seat was not big enough for the both of us. After a few miles on the rough dusty tracks it felt that my arse was being pounded harder than Bangkok ladyboy on a busy night out but luckily Daz wasn’t feeling too well so we managed a couple of smaller temples and a sunset view before having to call it quits and return to the safety of the room and private loo (say no more!!). That night it was bed rest for him and dinner on my lonesome and a hope that the following day would be more rewarding as we only had 3 nights booked here.

Get your point across with  extra punctuation.

The last day we were up early and raring to go. I had persuaded Daz that we should get a bike each as it was uncomfortable sitting on the back so over the road we went to arrange hiring these with our friend, Dragon Lady Mark II. No deposit, no passport and not even any paperwork….10,000 kyat later (about £5.50) and off we whizzed on our E bikes with our pee pot lids and silent engines………..slow and steady was the pace! Gaining confidence as the day progressed we went deeper and deeper into the dirt roads where some of the rarer temples were situated away from the other tourists. The area these temples take up is huge and part of the fun is just cruising around on the bikes taking in the shifting vistas.

Security came and took the intruders away.

 As the day was coming to an end, we found a temple we were allowed to climb which was rare and watched another blistering red sunset descend on the temple zone then as we were leaving next day and had to return the e-bikes Daz was persuaded to teach me some motocross skills so we hit the dirt roads flat out as darkness fell and mercilessly pounded the bikes to within an inch of their lives which now is likely to be much shorter, making the suspension on my bike emit some very terminal noises. We nursed the bikes back to the agent and dropped them back with a cheery wave to the owner with innocent faces to boot. Dinner was next and was going to the local Weatherspoons funny enough (nothing to do with the real Witherspoons that we have in U.K.) but found it bursting with the over enthusiastic trip advisor crowd that frequent such establishments that are listed on their website so instead opted for a more ‘local’ place with no white faces but some nice draught beer and an interesting pizza type meal that tasted a bit on the funky side. You would not get this from Domino’s. Our next destination was going to be Inle lake which meant transversing the country by means of a 12-14hour overnight minibus ride that we had seen some bad reviews about so we decided to splash out and book an internal flight to save us the hassle and as it turned out cheap enough at $50 each.

Errrrrr........MORE pagodas and temples.