Bagan

We flew into Bagan from Mandalay on Thursday morning, leaving us 4 days to explore temples....and there are a lot of them!
Bagan is simply magical, with literally 1000's of temples as far as the eye can see and all open to exploration! Very Indiana Jones.
It puts Ankor Wat and Tikal to shame.....it's stunning here.

Bagan is an ancient city that was the capital of the prosperous Bagan empire that controlled most of present day Burma. At the height of empire’s power between the 11th and 13th century more than 10,000 temples and pagodas were built over an area of 20sq kilometers!

It’s not clear exactly what happened to Bagan and how one of the greatest cities in Southeast Asia was left abandoned but sometime towards the end of the thirteenth century the population fled and left the enormous complex of incredible temples and palaces to the will of fate.

Thankfully, much of ancient Bagan has survived until today and it’s now one of the most important sites in Myanmar. The grand palaces, monasteries and official buildings would all have been made of wood and have been destroyed but the temples and pagodas were all made of stone and are still standing in surprisingly good condition.

That's Scott standing on the top of the temple...I'm across the field on another temple!

That's me on the top of  the temple across the field!

From the top of the taller temples you can look out into the distance and see the religious structures for as far as they eye can see.

The main period of construction here was begun in the 11th century by a king called Anawrahta who had been converted to Theravada Buddhism and wanted to prove his devotion to his new found faith. The building was continued by his successors and since many kings wanted to leave a legacy for future generations to see, impressive monuments were erected in evolving styles and shapes.
These days people still come and worship at the temples....but surrounded by tourists.

The best way to explore the sights here is by electric moped. You can rent them for about $5 a day and they go about 40-50km/hour.

I have always had a bit of an irrational fear of motorized 2 wheeled vehicles...If you told me a week ago that I would be riding around S.E.Asia on a scooter...in flip flops and no helmet no less, I would have literally laughed in your face and probably bet my entire bank account, retirement savings and the deed to my house that there was NO way that would be happening.
Once here, however, and seeing the distance between the temples it really is the only reasonable option...some people ride bicycles (shitty, falling apart, destroy your knees bikes), hire horse carts or join tourist buses but it wasn't for us...SO, I put my big girl pants on, faced my fear and learned to drive a scooter.
I had little to no faith in my abilities.
Scott had even less I imagine....as he repeatedly asked my "are you sure?" at the rental place.

I started out going so slow that pedestrians were practically passing me and by the end of day one I was navigating off road conditions, sand, highways, temple steps...you name it!

We also learned the hard way that our map was not to scale when we tried to drive to a neighboring town at night for dinner...in the dark.....What we thought would be 15 minutes ended up taking 30 minutes in what I like to affectionately call "the scooter ride to hell."

It was dark, potholey, full of traffic going in all directions, my battery was dying and we didn't exactly know where we were in relation to where we were going without light to see landmarks. When we finally arrived at the town we were aiming for, we decided to turn around ago back without dinner.....My nerves were frayed and the scooter battery was soooo low. It was a good thing too as it literally sputtered into the rental place! It was a trial by fire learn to ride a scooter day for sure...but so glad I did and ended up being super fun and the best way to explore and get around out here.
We went back to that same restaurant we were aiming for the next day for lunch and it turns out we stopped and turned around about 1 minute away...haha.

The scooters were of varying quality and we got a dud everyday and had a breakdown.

The first day, Scott's battery died at the end of our day about 2 kms away from town...we switched bikes and my lower weight was able to hump it another km until it officially waved the white flag...so we abandoned it on the side of the road and doubled on my bike back to the rental place with a photo of where we left it. On day 2, one of the batteries suddenly died mid-day just as we managed to be passing a fancy hotel who let us use their phone to call the rental place who came up with new batteries after 20mins. The third day my bike just suddenly sputtered to a stop on the side of the highway, but we knew the battery was good...a nice man who drove by and saw us fiddling with it stopped and reattached a loose wire and got it running thankfully!

We watched the sunset on the top of one of the huge pagodas last night and tomorrow morning I'm dragging Scott up at 5am to watch the sunrise on top of a different temple we found on our first day and liked a lot. The big thing to do here is take a morning hot air balloon ride and the morning sky fills with them! Unfortunately, at $350 (USdollars!!), it is entirely out of our budget...so we'll watch them from the ground instead.

Tomorrow afternoon we leave Bagan and fly to Inle lake.

Touring the cities of Amarapura, Innwa and Sagaing

We spent our second day in Mandalay heading out of town to visit the 3 cities of Amarapura, Innwa and Sagaing. The best way to do this is to hire a taxi for the day. It's pretty cheap...I think we paid about $40 and had the guy for 8 hours.

We left the hotel at 8:30am and headed to the Mahamuni Buddha temple, which is one of the most important Buddhist pilgrimage sites in Burma.

The temple houses the Mahamuni Buddha image, the most highly revered Buddha image in the country. The pagoda was built in 1785 by King Bodawpaya of the Konbaung dynasty after the Mahamuni image was captured during the invasion of the Arakan Kingdom.


The Mahamuni image is enshrined in a small chamber topped with a seven tiered Pyatthat Burmese style roof. The Mahamuni, which means the Great Image is seated on a very ornate 1.80 meters high pedestal. The image  is 3.80 meters high and weighs about 6½ tons.

To pay respect to the Buddha image, male devotees apply gold leaf to the image, which is called shwe cha in Burmese. As a result, the Mahamuni Buddha is covered with a thick layer of gold leaf of about 15 centimeters, which has distorted the shape of the image. 
There is a ritualistic cleaning and polishing at 4am...the hotel suggested we go to this and we laughed out loud! haha

Several old photos of the image in the temple show the difference in the outline of the image between about a century ago and now. Scotty was able to go in and check it out but no women allowed unfortunately...stupid ovaries. 

We stopped in for a quick visit to Mahar Gandaryon Monastery where you can observe ways of life of Monks. Every day at 9:30am, all 1300 of them march into the dining hall for their only meal of the day and you can stand to the side to watch.

Next stop was Sagaing hill.

Sagaing was the royal capital for only three years before nearby Inwa took over in 1764, but it remains an important spiritual town attracting many people to meditate in its monasteries.

The hill contains hundreds of stupas. You can walk up Sagaing Hill and there are great views of the town, the Irrawaddy and Ava (Inwa) Bridge. Covered paths along the hillside connect the monasteries and monuments to each other.

The Soon Oo Ponya Shin Pagoda is located on the top of the Sagaing Hill. It is one of the oldest temples on Sagaing Hill.  It was built in 1312 by Minister Pon Nya. and it is decorated with glass tiles for an unusual shimmering effect. It has some interesting paintings and statues, and fantastic views over the Buddhist University, other temples and pagoda below.

Innwa is an ancient imperial capital of successive Burmese kingdoms from the 14th to 19th centuries. Throughout history, it was sacked and rebuilt numerous times. The capital city was finally abandoned after it was completely destroyed by a series of major earthquakes in March 1839. Though only a few traces of its former grandeur remain today. 
Innwa is on an island and the only access is longboat. Once you arrive on the island, you need to procure a horse and cart to take you around to see things as they are spread fairly far apart.

I had our first trip incident climbing on the boat....I tripped on a protruding bolt and rolled my right ankle badly. With in a hour it was the size of a golf ball and eventually I could barely weight bear on it. I still managed to see the rest of the days sights but was very crippled. Thankfully, the next morning it felt better and I was able to walk enough to function. It's still super swollen but I'm getting around ok...way too much walking and climbing needed in the next few days to be injured and there is literally no medical care here. 

The biggest draw in the area of amarapura is the unique U Bein Bridge, a beautiful 1.2 kilometre structure built from teak planks and said to be the longest of its type in the world. The local mayor, U Bein, salvaged the wood from pieces of the dismantled teak palace at Amarapura when the capital moved to Mandalay in 1857. 

In wet season the water laps the boards but in dry season it's a good 20 feet up and there are crops in the field below. It was super sketchy to walk on though...held together by random nails on uneven rotting boards...and it kinda moved in spots with the weight of people walking it!

The bridge’s attraction is not simply in its structure, but that it remains a central part of the community, with hundreds of locals and saffron-robed monks walking their bicycles home along it, and fishermen going about their daily work in its shadow. The best time to see the bridge is sunset...it was stunning and one of the best sunsets I've seen.  You can hire a boat to take you out to watch it from the water, but we just climbed down and watched it from the side of the river.