Bagan - Myanmar
/After our few days in Yangon, Samantha and I took an overnight bus north to Bagan. The bus ride took about 9 hours, and we started at 8pm. We sprang for the VIP class for a whopping $4 extra, and it was definitely worth it. While not luxurious by any means, the bus had only three seats per row, two on one side and one on the other. The seats were like first class airline seats, though much less legroom. We decided we'd take a few of our precious remaining nyquil and thought we'd be able to sleep through. About 4 hours in we were woken up from our drug induced stupor and told that everyone had to get off the bus at the rest stop. It was quite an experience. Unlike highways in the US, it didn't seem like there were stops very frequently at all, so even though it was midnight when we arrived, the whole place was buzzing with people.
After we piled back on the bus, we both slept through until we arrived in Bagan. It was a little after 5am so the sun wasn't up yet and it was still dark, so we weren't able to really tell where we had arrived until later, which made for a really cool surprise. Bagan was originally home to over 13,000 temples, but time and nature has reduced that number to roughly 2,500. We were too tired to stay up and seek out the sunrise on that first morning, and instead went back to bed for a few hours. When we did finally rent some scooters (little electric powered ones with a top speed of 15-20km or so) what we saw was breathtaking. We both thought that maybe we were over the thrill of seeing Buddhist pagodas, but on our little bikes among literally thousands of them, we knew we weren't. We woke up super early at about 5am in order to sit atop one of the pagodas to watch the sunrise. Everything we read said that this is a must do while in Bagan, and the views certainly did not disappoint. One of the big draws here for tourists is a sunrise hot air balloon ride, which you can see in some of the photos. We opted not to do one, as they were pretty expensive, but I bet the view is incredible.
We spent a few days here, each day renting our little bikes and setting out with just a map and our camera. Obviously the highlight was the temples themselves, but we both loved riding the bikes. Sam loved it so much she would make race car sounds when she would zip by me. On one of our rides, we found an observation tower almost by accident. The tower was marked on our map, but no one we spoke to mentioned it and we didn't really see much online about it. Nonetheless, we forked over the entrance fee and took an elevator up 13 floors. We had an amazing 360 degree panoramic view all to ourselves. While probably not as stunning as the view from a balloon would be, it was still unreal. From that high it was almost impossible to count the number of temples and pagodas dotting the landscape below. We were so struck by the view, and also thinking we had discovered this awesome secret, that we decided we'd come back at sunset. It was immediately clear when we returned that this was NOT a secret in the area. There were caterers and staff hurrying about setting up for a wedding in the lawn surrounding, though the tower was still open to the public. At the top, it was pretty much standing room only, though that didn't take away from the view.
We decided that we didn't really want to take another bus, and opted instead for a river boat that would take us north to Mandalay (Bagan has its own airport but there are, on average, 3 crashes a year on flights in and out, so we wanted to fly out of the larger airport outside Mandalay). Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures during the cruise, but it was a very relaxing and pleasant way to spend the day. The boat wasn't very big, and there were only about 10 other passengers, so the sun deck had ample room to read and take in the sights. We arrived at sunset, and flew out the next morning, headed to Cambodia.
