Myanmar Post 4: Bagan

We arrived in Bagan under cover of night. But still, they were waiting for us. They knew we were coming. Had someone warned them beforehand? Or perhaps, had they memorized the boat schedule? Who knows?

(The boat only arrives twice a week, so . . . )

All I know is, when we attempted to get off the boat we were eagerly greeted by a multitude (just typed 'mutidude' and, yes, they were all men, but I'm getting off topic here . . .) of horse and cart drivers who were hoping to drive us to our guesthouse and then secure our business for the next few days in Bagan.

Evan and I weren't really all that taken with the one who ended up taking us to our guesthouse, so we declined to engage his services for the next day. Instead, we asked our guesthouse if they knew a driver (surprise! they did). And he ended up being pretty awesome.

Anyway, we set off in our horse and cart to see some of the over 2000 temples which lie in less than 16 square miles. Since we only had two days to see temples, we had to hustle. We started off with an old temple that was fully restored, the Shwezigon Paya.
Looks pretty modern, doesn't it? Well, fortunately it was almost the only one.

Temples were just everywhere. Popping up like freckles on my skin when I'm in the sun for longer than five minutes. Okay, maybe not the best metaphor. But you know what I mean. Check it out.


Oh yeah, no shoes in the temples. No problem, right? Not for me, generally. I have no problem taking my shoes off to show respect.

But . . .

When the temperature is well over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and the sun is shining down on the pavement and tiles and other stuff that lines the pathways outside of the temples . . . the pathways get kind of hot. Like, surface of the sun hot. We tried running at breakneck speed from one spot of shade to the next (the ubiquitous buskers laughed at us), but sometimes even that wasn't fast enough. Evan was particularly wussy about this.


Also, check out what shoes he was wearing. I know I've blogged about his footwear choices before, but to wear shoes and socks all day, and then take them off at each temple (we probably visited at least 20 the first day), that's a special kind of insanity.

(With respect for your delicate sensibilities, I have not enlarged the photos of shoes. You're welcome.)

Here were my shoes. A little old and ratty maybe (they have since gone to meet the big shoemaker in the sky; they didn't survive a trip into the ocean on Koh Samet), but certainly easy to take off and put back on.

Okay, and some more pictures of temples for you. A lot of them had elaborate gates, I assume to keep unwanted visitors out.

Some had gold trim.

Quite a few had large stone lions to scare off any riffraff. (That's our horse and cart driver over there, to the left. Say hello!)

An old bell.

A very large sitting buddha.

Another old bell. Am I boring you here? I'm sorry, I promise no more bells, ok? I just get so caught up in all the memories.

Lacquerware is an art form that is still practiced in Myanmar, although most of the lacquerware on the streets or in the markets is only one or two layers and isn't the real thing. But Evan and I got to go to a laquerware 'factory' to see the whole process, where they produced some high end product that was 14 layers, and then some more sort of nice everyday product that was 8 layers.

We bought some lacquered glasses that were 8 layers. We couldn't afford the 14 layer stuff. We're not made of money. The shop owner (who spoke excellent English, despite a repaired harelip that left him with a strong speech impediment) said that most of his 14 layer lacquerware was shipped out of the country and sold in Europe or the USA. So you might have some!

Here are a couple pictures of the women working on it. It is fantastically detailed work.


And after that? More temples!




I'm not sure what else to say. More temples. That's all there is to say.



And more . . .

Here's our horse and cart again.

And that concludes day one of our trip to Bagan, at least in pictures. After we finished seeing temples, we went back to our guesthouse and took a much-needed shower (we looked at a thermometer in the shade during one of the cooler parts of the day and it was 104 degrees F). Then we set out for dinner at one of the tourist joints (pretty much all that was available to us). We settled on a Nepalese/Tibetan restaurant that had excellent food. We were very impressed.

The next day we started with a drive through a tree lined road, and our horse cart driver turned to Evan, and casually asked, "Are you married?"

This is a question we get all the time in Asia. Dealing with it can be tricky, as our views on marriage are not the same as the prevailing customs here.

"No," Evan said, and smiled.

"Later . . ." our driver suggested.

"Yes, later . . . maybe," Evan said.

Our driver looked at him and said, "Say later, not maybe. Myanmar people think if you say maybe, something will come between you. Better to say later. If you say maybe to a Myanmar woman she will be very angry."

Evan agreed, "Ok, later then."

(Poor Evan! I was sitting in the back of the cart, so I stayed silent. Still, a fascinating fact about Burmese culture.)

And here is a view out one of the windows in one of the temples.

And a view out one of the doors.

And a hole in the wall.

And a ceiling, which used to be much more brightly painted but has faded over the centuries.

A buddha. There are always many in every temple.

Another buddha.

An view out one of the windows on the second floor of a temple.

Another buddha. And Evan in front of it. I later learned that it's very rude to take someone's picture in front of a statue of a buddha, so . . . oops. We did it. Sorry.

Strangely enough, Indiana Jones was there. I wonder what he was doing?

And Evan in front of a temple. You may notice that we have way more pictures of Evan than we have pictures of me. This is not my fault. And unfortunately, when he does take pictures of me, they all tend to turn out blurry. And then . . . I tend to delete them. Because no one looks good blurry.

And the last temple of the day. We were ready to go back to the guesthouse, relax, and take a shower at this point. We had had enough temples to fill several lifetimes. (Shot with my Leica as the XSI was out of batteries. Can you tell the difference?)
That's it for Bagan! We went back, had a shower, ate at the delicious Tibetan/Nepalese restaurant again, and went to bed.

Then we woke up at 3 am to catch a bus for Inle Lake, but that is a story best told in the next blog post, by Evan . . . Until then.