Awesome trip on the river to Bagan! Relaxing, peaceful, lots of room to stand and stretch. Plus, for the same price, I got the boat with AC so when it got to cooking on top, I was able to go below and cool off.
Nice traveling with space, being able to sit and read, take a nap…get a coffee…what a great day of travel. Here are a few things I saw along the way.
PS…this is the “emergency” exit on the boat!
We visited a traditional village along the river. One of their specialties is pottery. It’s all hand made, potters wheel turned by foot and then baked in a mound under ground. Amazing watching how fast one pot came together and seeing how the pattern is placed manually! Here are a few photo’s:
I thought I saw a lot of temples, pagoda’s and stupa’s along the river. OH MY! Here in Bagan, it’s amazing!!! Today, I went on a really awesome “free” guided tour by e-bike. Free with a great guide working only for tips. He was so good at giving a brief overview on temples and history and stupa’s without causing me to go into an information overload coma. Perfect! And, he is not the normal guide. He runs a MOUNTAIN BIKING business taking people on custom cross-country bike rides. Yes, we had a few things in common.
After 6 hours of temple experience and lunch together, I have a whole new collection of friends…Argentina, Chile, Germany, France, Holland, etc. What fun!
Awestruck by all the stupa’s and pagoda’s I sat sticking up on the horizon, he informed us that there are over 4,000 monuments here. And “here” means roughly a 14 square kilometer area! Wow!
Some views from today’s ride:
And now…who knows???
I arrived here with some ideas of what to do next. Talking with people and with the travel desk, I started getting a feeling for what is realistic. Going to Maputi is out! Too far! Traveling to Mindat doesn’t feel right. Going on to Mrauk-u (sounding something like “meow”) might be in the works. But then what?
Today, I realized I might be able to fly South to the beach and chill for a few days before flying on? Checking into possibilities and feeling for how everything falls into place, I’m going to sleep on it. Everything gets clear at just the right moment.
For now, after a night when the AC broke and I didn’t get all that much sleep, I’m ready to head off to bed. It was very hot here. The AC would run for 10 minutes and then stop! Finally, I got off my top bunk and grabbed the remote. When I woke and the AC was off, I turned it on and went back to sleep. I learned that if I could find a way to turn the fan on really high and enter a low temperature, it actually cooled the room….intermittently!
Hopefully, they got it fixed?! And I’m in a bottom bunk so it should be cooler.
Now…ZZZzzzzzz!