South East Asia 2017 - Day 11: Bagan
Tuesday 15 August, mainly fine, 33°
Another 4am alarm for sunrise, downstairs, grabbed Ebikes again, and this time we rode to Law Ka Ou Pagoda ( we had read about someone who accessed this pagoda in May ) but there was no access, the gates were locked and the gate keeper wasn’t opening it up ) so back up Shwesandaw again. Again a fairly plain sunrise ( cloudy ) with no balloons ( windy ) so back to the hotel at 6:30am for breakfast at 7am
We headed back to bed and slept until 11am then caught up on some admin.
We went out for a walk at 12:30 and walked to New Moon II café again and had lunch this time ( Masuman Curry, and potatos and eggs, and smoothies )
Wandered back through town for supplies for our train trip tomorrow then back to the hotel at 3pm. We went down for a quick swim at 4pm, before grabbing Ebikes again at 5:30pm and off to try to catch a nice sunset. This time we headed to an unnamed pagoda, just north of Dhammayazaka Pagoda, that we had seen people up previously. We climbed up the narrow steep internal stairs to find about 6 people up there already and few more arrived later. It was a nice uncrowded spot to watch an unexciting sunset.
We headed off at 6:50 after the sun was down and rode our way back through the dirt roads to the hotel, and an easy dinner option at the hotel again.
So today was our last day in Bagan, we catch the 7am train back to Mandalay tomorrow. Bagan is an amazing place where the main area of temples has been left pretty much as it was, and all the infrastructure has been built around that area. So there are no shops or any other kind of permanent structures on the plains between the temples, just open grassy plains which are still being farmed with cows and goats. Sadly though, it shows signs of becoming a bit of a tourist must do and a few big resorts have been built nearby, and these often have no connection to the local townships. So soon the Bagan experience could consist of flying in, bus to the resort, go to the resorts private temple / viewing, watch the sunset from an observation platform, stay the night, watch the sunrise and then fly home. Which would be sad as half the fun of Bagan is the dusty tracks, discovering new temples, and friendly locals.