Day 2 Myanmar- Bagan

Early the next morning we flew out to Bagan, a famous ancient city where the landscape is dotted with thousands of stupas/pagodas/temples (someone explained that stupas have no entrance, whereas pagodas and temples do...not sure how accurate that is). Some of the buildings are from the 11th century, but several of them are brand new or were in the process of being built.

We were flying a new airline called Asian Wings Airways and weren't sure what to expect. At the airport they gave us stickers that we had to wear indicating which of the airlines we were traveling on. We weren't sure how it would be, but it was just fine (a little loud as it was a prop plane) and they even served us a little breakfast. We arrived at our hotel without any problems and were impressed with the amazing views of the stupas that we had right form our hotel. There was a wedding party going on when we arrived, which was neat to see.

Relief from Andy to see that our plane wasn't some duct taped mess!

The wedding car!

After dropping off our things in the room, we immediately decided that we would take horsecarts to see the stupas and temples as that was the easiest way to get around and up close. We ended up taking 2 horsecarts  because jamming the 5 of us into one would have been near impossible! We spent the entire morning (almost 5 hours!) traveling around Bagan by horsecart. We were hit with one stunning view after another. We saw interesting frescoes, many images of Buddha, entered several temples and pagodas, saw teak doors that were hundreds of years old, climbed up to the top of some of the pagodas to witness amazing views of the landscape (albeit while practically burning the soles of my feet! walking on the hot bricks was like walking over coals!).

View of a temple from afar

Tim making some friends

View from atop the pagoda...pretty sure I was doing the "ouch hot hot hot" dance while taking this photo!

A cute little boy that I was playing peekaboo with before he ran off pretending he was a plane. In Myanmar, women and children wear a paste made of wood/bark/roots from a tree (thanaka) on their face to protect them from the sun and also as a form of makeup. Some women made designs out of the paste (such as leaves).

Woman selling mangos and other goods outside of the temple

During the ride we passed by farms where we saw farmers using the old style of plowing. I don't think we passed a single farm that had any kind of machinery.

 Tim and Shara politely admiring the artwork

Inside the Ananda temple- this is the south facing Buddha. Something interesting about this is that from up close, Buddha looks very serious and sad but as you step further away, his mouth turns into a smile. Andy has a video of this so perhaps I can get that up on the blog. You can see in the photo below that Buddha appears to be smiling.

Perspective so you can see how big it was.

Us with our horsecart driver

Afterwards we had a late lunch at the hotel before taking naps in the room. Andy, Shara and Tim decided to take the horsecart back out again to visit some of the pagodas we missed and to catch the sunset from on top of one of the pagodas. At this point, Adam began to feel more sick (he wasn't feeling well for most of the morning) so I decided to stay back at the hotel with him and just catch the sunset from on top of one of the buildings nearby.

Adam ended up taking a dip in the pool to try and feel better. I think it helped a little bit! The views just from sitting at the hotel were great and we ended up catching a very nice sunset. The only thing that detracted from the sunset was a few men that followed us up top of the building because they were trying to sell us their paintings. They were very nice (asking about our travels, etc.) but finally came out and told us that they were painters and could sell some of their work to us. In addition, there was an older gentleman that we had seen earlier in the morning at one of the sites who also tried to sell us some of his work. He ended up following us back to the hotel and appeared at sunset to see if we wanted to buy something. I don't blame them stalking us since it was low season and I really didn't see hardly any other travelers.

The sun was a beautiful blazing red color as it set

For dinner, we decided to give a Lonely Planet recommendation a try. We headed out to an Indian Restaurant and it turned out to be very good, very filling and with phenomenal service and nice ambiance. Everything from their mango lassi to their naan to the curries were good. Even Adam, who was a bit under the weather, filled up!

Lots of dipping sauces, including mango chutney

Seriously it was a feast. We had soup, bread, rice, curries, appetizers, etc. etc.

And clearly, with all that food in our bellies we were sufficiently tuckered out so we went to bed right away (plus we were waking up at 5am for the sunrise!).