We stayed in two rooms at the Arthawka, an immaculately presented and very friendly hotel; family rooms are few and far between here. It is likely that the hotel's owners have some links to the government given its size and quality. Smaller, family-run guesthouses do exist, but don't seem to list online and and we made all our bookings from home months ago.
Bagan covers 26 sq miles, so is a huge site. Originally over 4000 Buddhist temples were constructed there by Bagan's kings between the 11th and 13th centuries and around 3000 sites remain (the numbers differ depending on the source).
In 1989/90, the Government created New Bagan a few minutes from the old city walls and moved the people who were living in the old city at that time. The idea was apparently to preserve the temples and protect them from looting. There are still crops grown and stock (oxen and goats) grazed in Old Bagan, and there's a street with a number of restaurants primarily aimed at tourists too.
On our first morning, Adrian was up at 5am to go hot air ballooning over the temples at sunrise. As children under eight aren't able to fly, I went the following day. What an incredible experience! A first for us both. We were collected from our hotel at 5.30am and taken to the launch site for a light breakfast, coffee and to watch the balloons inflate.
Once we'd taken off with 20 other balloons we drifted along looking at the temples, villages and countryside in the early morning light. To properly appreciate the scale of Bagan from the air was wonderful. There was some cloud cover for Adrian's trip, but mine was clearer, so we had a lovely sunrise and saw the mist hanging around the temples that appears in many photos. After a slightly bumpy, but not uncomfortable landing we enjoyed fresh orange juice, bubbles (a ballooning tradition it seems), watermelon and papaya before returning to the hotel by about 8.30am.
The pilots from our company, Oriental Ballooning, were mostly English, but also Australian and Irish, and were highly professional and knowledgable about the area. They come for the season, which is about six months over the summer. I don't think the balloons fly at all the rest of the year as the weather is too unreliable. Apparently they are normally given clearance to ascend to 2000ft, but over the past week or so, the airport has restricted them to 500-1000ft, which impacts on their flight path. My pilot speculated that it maybe because an aeroplane reported a balloon flying off-course last week, which she said was innaccurate. There are obviously struggles between the ballooning companies and local organisations from time to time.
It was well-worth having booked ahead as all 21 balloons (the maximum permitted) were full both days. We'd both highly recommend ballooning if you're in Bagan. If you're reading this planning your own trip to Bagan, here's a tip: book your ballooning through a local travel agent ahead of time. We used Peace Travel. They get much better prices than what the ballooning company websites offer customers directly, you can pay via Paypal using a credit card, rather than having to carry a large amount of cash, and the tickets are couriered to your first hotel for your collection when you arrive. This saved us about USD 150, as well as ensuring we both got a place and on the dates we wanted.
Some of the roads around the temple area are sealed, but most are sand or dirt, which makes for a dusty place. You can get around on foot, by bike, motor bike, electric scooter, horse and cart or car. We'd have loved to have cycled, but didn't see any child-sized bikes and felt the kids weren't quite ready for the crazy roads nor the distances involved given the heat. We decided to hire a horse and cart (or chariot according to Eleanor and Leo) for our first day so set off with Ko Shan and Lucky the horse mid-morning. On our second day we hired a car to visit some more distant temples, and on the third Ko Shan took us again for the afternoon, this time with a horse named Diamond.
We discovered that essentials for temple-ing are water, snacks, light-weight clothing that covers shoulders and knees, and shoes that are easily slipped on and off as you come and go from the temples. This may go some way to explaining why the footwear of choice here is jandals. They are worn for pretty much everything: construction work, waiting tables, retail, working on the roads, farming etc.) riding motorbikes etc. We didn't see any snakes but we didn't venture too far from the path. We did see plenty of temple dogs and even some squirrels, and in one temple we even saw bats. Even though the dogs are obviously fed by locals, we think Bagan would benefit from a Soi Dog!
UNESCO were involved in a restoration programme that took place in the 1990's following a devastating earthquake, 6.8 on the Richter scale, in 1975 which left many temples as piles of rubble (not for the first time due to earthquakes, raids and other events). They are somewhat critical of the locally funded restorations during that period. Apparently the quality of the work was dubious and there was little adherence to traditional building methods. Regardless of the building standards, it is a marvellous place to explore. It certainly doesn't feel as though you are visiting ruins.
Given the number of sites, and that we only had three days, we picked a short list of temples that we particularly wanted to see and focused on them. The temples are in little clusters as different Kings ordered their construction. Some you can climb to the top for a view, others you can wander about inside looking at the many Buddhas or centuries-old painted walls, and others you view from the exterior only. Some, such as Ananda, are active sites of worship, so draw visitors from all over Myanmar and further afield.
In total we visited about 20 different temples over the three days. Our collective favourite was Sulamani, a large, beautiful peaceful temple containing lots of wall art and plenty of spots for Eleanor and Leo to continue their game of 'marshmallows and toothpicks' (which they played pretty well everywhere!). We spent well over an hour there exploring inside and out.
We saw a stunning sunset from Shwesandaw Paya and loved clambering up Pyathada Paya and Thatbyinnyu as well as exterior steps on an unnamed temple nearby. Many temples are only identified by an archeological site number, it was explained to us they have yet to rediscover the names from the texts they uncover. The steps are often uneven and dusty, so a bit treacherous in places but generally very manageable. We were thrilled to escape unscathed as, judging from the odd limping tourist and the number of bandages/band aids, not everyone does!
The kids posed for many, many photos with local people along the way. To our surprise, they rarely said 'no', but occasionally they'd had enough so we stepped in when required. They really enjoyed the temples and have asked to visit more. Easily done!
Ananda was probably the most striking site people-wise during our visit. There is an annual festival that is held at a different temple each year, which happened to coincide with our visit. This year it was Ananda's turn. The festival involves a large market selling food, souvenirs and household goods which we enjoyed walking through. There are also free concerts and other events. We'd have liked to see Iron Cross, Myanmar's best-known band, which was playing on the Saturday night, but decided it would be a bit much for the kids after a day's temple-ing. It got rave reviews from Ko Shan the next day.
Ko Shan speaks some English (considerably better than our Burmese!), so we chatted a little as we trotted along. From him we learned that the preferred sport locally was volleyball, but is now shifting to football, that the population of New Bagan is about 5000 and that no one lived inside the temples, just around them. Adrian asked his opinion of Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won the 2015 election and officially takes power in early February. He is hopeful that she will be able to bring change, but recognises the challenges, so isn't holding his breath. He said "we have heard her talking, but now we shall see what she does".
Bouncing along in the cart obviously gave Leo some time to think about life too. At one point we had a conversation that went like this:
Leo: 'Mummy do you know what is very special magic?'
Me: 'I don't know'
Leo: 'Love. Love is the only magic in the world'.
The festival attracts large numbers of people from all over Myanmar, so it was a busy time in Old Bagan. The roads were congested with motorbikes, cars, local buses (little trucks with seats in the back that are entirely happy to carry extra people on the roof rack), coaches etc. It was the Burmese equivalent of our time in Melaka! It was more difficult for Ko Shan to navigate the streets with Diamond on the Sunday afternoon due to the traffic, so we didn't go too far into the madness.
At most temples you'll find at least one or two people selling souveniers: art, lacquer-ware, gongs, puppets, books featuring Myanmar in various languages or postcards. The sales approach is generally engaging and not overly pushy, but there was a noticeable change in the intensity during the festival. We try to remind ourselves that many people here have very little, so the income is incredibly important, but we did need to be quite firm in our 'no' on a couple of occasions.
We spent Sunday morning relaxing by the hotel pool writing a few postcards while Eleanor and Leo swam. They stayed in for ages given the freezing temperature and had loads of fun. They were the only people we saw in the pool in the four days we stayed, Adrian and I didn't venture in. While the days were warm at around 29 degrees, it wasn't enough to tempt us! I was still chilly at the memory of the Swan Hotel pool in Mandalay.
That evening we watched a beautiful sun set over the Irrewaddy from a quiet (although they were setting up for a tour group of 150 that night) river bank restaurant. We all enjoyed a bit of time out of the crowds playing cards as the sun went down.
One thing unrelated to temples that we enjoyed sampling in Bagan was some Myanmar wine. Not bad at all, and a welcome change from Myanmar, the local beer. We also sampled a few Myanmar curries, which are served with rice and a couple of vegetable side dishes. The curry isn't particularly spicy, but it is very tasty. My favourite dish so far though is the red tomato salad with garlic and chilli. Yum! It turns out that you can eat noodles three meals in a row and still be happy enough to see them at breakfast the following day. I am wondering if I'll start to tire of them soon though!
The next morning we left Bagan in a taxi for Nay Pyi Taw. We were sad to be leaving but hope we'll be back one day to explore some more.
Here's the full list of temples we visited, for posterity: unnamed; Nagayon; Ananda; Shwegugwi; Thatbyinnyu; unnamed; Gawdawpalin; Shwezigon; Upali Thein; Bupaya; Tharaba Gate; Sulamani; Pyathada; Dhammayangi; Shwesandaw; Soemingyi; Abeyadana; Manuha; Nanpaya.
Ballooning
Sulamani
Modern temple statues mid-game of 'marshmallows and toothpicks'
Sunset over the Irrawaddy
No comments:
Post a Comment