-As of earlier this year (2024) it appears the current status of Myanmar has become dangerous and the advice is not to travel. Please check up to date travel advice before considering travel.- Day 1 Today was to be one of those days! We were heading from the beautiful deserted beaches of Ngwe Saung to Bagan, the infamous temple town of Myanmar. It was not a straight forward journey, we discovered buses did not run North from Ngwe Saung instead we had to get a bus all the way back to Yangon (it was 5 hour journey here and ended up being a 7 hour journey back!) the bus journeys are fairly excruciating due to the nonstop love themed music videos they inflict on you, the first time I thought it was funny for about half an hour, 7 hours later not quite so funny! Once in Yangon we discovered that the bus heading for Bagan departs from the other bus station in Yangon which turned out to be 37 kilometres away. After some frantic negotiating with a cab driver and a ridiculously long drive we arrived at the correct bus station. It was a crazy place, people were shouting at you from everywhere, we managed to find a ticket desk offering sleeper buses to Bagan for 18,500 kyat each (about £12). We had 5 hours to kill till the bus left so loads of time to catch up on my journal and Lonely Planet reading. The bus was actually surprisingly nice, we discovered that most sleeper buses here have reclining seats, neck pillows and fleece blankets (we found out these were necessary as they appear to try and keep the bus as cold as possible with air con on full blast the whole time). They also have a kind of onboard ‘hostess’ who offers you a drink and a snack (normally a cake or doughnut) and a selection of tablets...yes that’s right, they offer you either travel sickness pills or drowsy ones to help you sleep!! Day 2 After a surprisingly good amount of sleep on the 10 hour bus journey we arrived in Bagan at 5am. The last thing you want to do when you have just woken up is to negotiate with a shouting crowd of taxi drivers but we managed to get a good deal for 5 of us together from the bus to be driven into town to find somewhere to stay. As you enter the border of the Archaeological Zone you have to stop and buy your entrance ticket, it cost $15USD and lasted for 5 days and will cover you for entrance into all the temples in Bagan. We ended up going around about 4 hotels that were full eventually finding the View Point Inn who let us leave our stuff in the lobby and return later in the hope a couple of rooms would have become free. We hired bikes from the hotel (I think they were around 2,000 kyat which is about £1.50) and cycled off towards the ruins to find a good site to enjoy the sunrise from. At this time in the morning it was truly magical and it takes a lot for me to say that about anything at that time in the morning! Hot air balloons were launching all around us filling the skies, which were turning the most incredible shades of orange and pink. We found a temple and climbed up to sit and watch what I can only describe as the most incredible view I have ever seen come to life.
The magical skies of Bagan at sunrise Sunrise in Bagan needs to be seen to be believed and I have never felt so lucky to witness something.
I honestly couldn't believe the sights I was seeing
Get this on your bucket list, you won't regret it! Full of excitement we cycled the sandy paths between a few more temples before stopping for some breakfast, we found a brilliant little vegetarian place called ‘Be kind to animals the moon!’ yes it makes no sense, but with a name like that we couldn’t help but go in and it was good. Unless you are on a really tight schedule here I would advise not trying to plan a route around the temples too much, I could give an idea of a route around but it’s so much fun to ride around and explore and such a treat when you come across all the different types of temples, they say there are still around 2,000 temples here so there is plenty to keep yourself busy. Most temples can be explored inside and out, there are also things such as hidden passage ways to be discovered, you can really feel like an explorer.
Take time to explore the smaller temples too
The 4 must see temples in Bagan to get you started are: - Dhammayangyi - Thatbyinnyu - Ananda - Shwezigon These are the most touristic temples which are still amazing but in so many ways it was the smaller ones I preferred that still had loads of character and no other tourists around.
Some smaller pagodas
Sulamani Guphaya Temple
Phwa Saw Brick Monastery There are quite a few tourists here and you will notice the locals have been quite resourceful in coming up with ways to try and get you to part with your tourist money, in particular are the local children who all have a selection of postcards that they will try and sell you everywhere you go...all the time! At one small temple some children tried to sell me some postcards as I was sitting and admiring the view, after a lot of polite smiles and no thank yous they eventually just sat and chatted to me and it was lovely to talk to them. They showed me their money collection...small change from countries all around the world, it was lovely. The bikes here were not brilliant we had a broken bike that just didn’t want to go anywhere and a couple of flat tyres, so do a bit of a once over before heading out on any bikes. Sunset on top of a temple was just as magical as sunrise, such a beautiful place!
Beautiful sunsets in Bagan Day 3 We decided that today we would take ebikes around the temples, they cost about 8,000 kyat (£5) for the day and made life a lot easier. It was brilliant fun we made it around loads of temples, all the bikes had ‘quirks’ but we hadn’t expected anything less. We had a few requests from the monks to have our photos taken with them on their iPads (yes that’s right we were just as surprised to see monks taking selfies on their iPads!) which was quite funny and we weren’t quite sure why.
Everywhere you look the view is filled with pagodas One of the bikes broke late in the afternoon which was bound to happen...we started fiddling around trying to fix it and luckily a very friendly local mechanic just so happened to by cycling by and stopped to help. It was fixed just in time to head off to watch tonight’s sunset and it was even more beautiful than last night’s. Day 4 The plan was to head off on a bit of an adventure to Mindat today but I was not well at all, our new friends had no choice but to go on ahead without us as I got more and more poorly...damn you travellers tummy! However, things took a turn for the worst, we popped out to get some fresh air and a cold drink, I ended up passing out and having a fit in the restaurant. My husband managed to hail a car with some very lovely locals and bundled me into the back as they drove us to the local hospital. It was all quite an experience (and not a great one) I won’t go into details but I ended up spending 2 nights in hospital, I got given a room which was literally like something you see on one of these charity appeal adverts on the TV, the bed had a tiny thin straw mattress, the room was dirty, the bathroom looked like no one had ever cleaned it. I was hooked up to a saline drip (we made sure that it was a clean fresh needle as we always carry a sterile kit with us just incase) I had an ECG type check with an old wooden machine it was all quite crazy. All I was allowed to eat was chicken noodle soup...Doctor’s orders! It was harder to find than you would think, My husband eventually found somewhere that made it and they gave it to him in a plastic carrier bag...noodle soup in a bag, it was quite a challenge to eat from a bag! I was in here with lots of local families and it was quite interesting to see that when they bring someone here quite often the whole family comes too and they all sleep in the room with the patient, they cook out in the courtyard and do their laundry...there were washing lines all around the courtyard. Somehow I became a bit of a talking point for the locals, I am not sure they had really seen many is any Westerners in the hospital here before, I had them coming to my door taking pictures on their phones, all sneaking a look in the door when they went past and taking pictures of me while I attempted to eat my soup in a bag in the courtyard! They weren’t rude just a bit intrigued I think. Overall though it was a bit of a horrible experience but give them their dues they got me better, I can only hope I wasn’t using a room that could have been used by a local! The whole hospital experience set us back $140 USD, it could have been worse but thank goodness for travel insurance! Basic language (written phonetically) Hello – Min-ga-la-ba Thank you – chei-zu-tin-bar-te or lots of people shorten it to chei-zu-bay BAGAN TOP TIPS
- Try and group together with people on the bus to share taxi rides from the bus station into town - Get the taxi to drive you around hotels if you haven't already booked (preferably of your choice), negotiate the price for this beforehand - Try to spend at least 3 days here then you can enjoy exploring without feeling under pressure - Bring a torch NEXT STEPS - Book accommodation or look at options in Bagan here - Purchase the Lovely Planet for Myanmar here
- Purchase a good travelling backpack I swear by my Berghaus 65 litre Rucksack like this one here - Make sure you pack a decent camera, I always favour a compact one from Sony similar to this one
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