We were in Yangon only one night and then it was on the night bus to Bagan (Remind me not to travel all night on a bus again). The Burmese sized seats where almost comical for two big white guys to sit in side by side. Plus, they had packed sacks of rice or something under the seats so there was no place to put our feet. We arrived, after 10hrs, in the early morning about 4:00AM and where greeted by a small fleet of horse cart taxi drivers. We were both tired and it was surprisingly cold... about 48F(I know that's nothing if you have the cloths for it, but we didn't) so we took our drivers recommendation for a hotel and after checking in we got a few need hours of sleep. Once the sun was up it warmed up quickly (highs in the 80's) and we made our way via horse cart to the temples to have a look around. Nick stayed for only a day and then made the return bus trip to Yangon and then back to Saigon while I stayed in Bagan for several more days before boarding a boat for Mandalay.
Bagan.
This is quite the place. Many have compared it to Angkor Wat in Cambodia and while it is similarly impressive, they are so different in character that it is difficult to make a comparison. Thousands of pagodas dot the horizon. Built from about a thousand years ago to the present and ranging is size from about 8' to over 200'. Though each structure has it's own merit the most impressive thing isn't any particular structure but the combination of all of the structures randomly covering the landscape. Add to that a fair amount of smoke from cook fire and trash burning and you've got imagery that even Hollywood would have difficulty coming up with.
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The people of Bagan are truly wonderful. Good natured and quick with a smile they are happy to help with anything from directions to the nearest restaurant to marriage advise. What is lacking here is infrastructure. The tourist gates have just begun to open since the normalization of relations with the US just three months ago and most hotels are already fully booked, internet is almost nonexistent and prices have risen over 50%. And while it appears that there is a ready work force to tackle the infrastructure needs there seems to be a real lack of leadership to guide the needed efforts to prepare for the flood of people that will most assuredly arrive in the coming months and years.
Putting together the team:
Aung Aung was my horse cart driver, a very easy going and thoughtful young man with a real philosophical point of view towards life relationships and time.
As we made our way through what seems like a sea of pagodas I was fortunate that we come across a couple of young women selling cloths at one of the temple entrances.
There names are Mo Mo and Win Win.
Mo Mo and Win Win are sisters who spend most of there days selling clothes to tourists. There main gig is to follow the hot air balloons via motor bike to there landing place and then try to sell to the tourists after they have landed. These two were easily the brightest personalities that I had come across so far in this country. They spoke Burmese, some French and fairly good English. They had a fun style that made even there efforts to sell me stuff I didn't need a pleasure to say no to. When I asked them to assist me with my photography they where happy to help and a pleasure to be around. They caught on very quickly and were proactively intuitive about the process.
On my last day in town I was able to have lunch at there house. It was great to be in a real Burmese home, and what a tasty feast we had.
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Mo Mo prepares Tanica (tree bark) by grinding it on a stone.
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Tanica is applied as a sunblock and beautification process
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At the end when we where saying goodbye they gave me several shirts and some post cards. Very generous gifts indeed.
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