We had four days to explore this massive site, home to over 2,000 pagodas. Perhaps the momst famous of Myanmar’s sites, the area was more touristy than we had been used to, but with our e-bikes we escaped most of it and had some of our best days in Myanmar here.
Day 81 – Sightseeing boat to Bagan
The day started with an early start – a 6.15am taxi to the boat jetty. Having packed the night before it was easy to get out though, and Aung, our driver from yesterday, was waiting to take us. A short drive later, on roads virtually empty of cars, but still bus with people wandering around, we arrived at the jetty. Aung informed us that most Burmese people are up around 6am, with others up earlier to make the rice for the monks who are fed at 5am!
We’d chosen one of the sightseeing boats over the bus. The bus is significantly cheaper, at £10 for a sleeper, and takes less time, but the various boats which go include a stop at a village along the way, as well as breakfast and lunch. It’s also a smooth ride on the river which you can walk about on. As we have two other overnight buses planned in Myanmar we opted for the cheapest boat we could find – the RV Nmai Hka.
We stepped on to find our Belgian friends also on the boat, so the kids had their playfriend again, which was good, as they were the only children. Most the other passengers were some other form of European – this is not the way the locals travel!
The boat is by no means luxury, especially by comparison to the river cruise boat passing us by, with old airplane seats downstairs and some metal chairs and tables under a canopy, and deckchairs on the sundeck above. Everything’s very old, but the downstairs has loads of legroom and is very close to the water level so it’s fun to look out.
We cast off at 7am sharp, and headed south past the hills of Saigang with all its golden stupas glittering in the morning sun and under the bridges.
After this the land flattened, the river widened and breakfast of bread, jam, hard boiled eggs, banana and some Myanmese cake thing were served.
We continued along the river, the banks lined with fishing huts and small farms, passing the narrow wooden fishing boats. As often is the way with religion and poverty, close to these huts is a shiny gold stupa. Building a stupa is a great way to gain favour for the next life, which explains why there are so many here.
Lunch was served before the village, even though it was meant to be after and was ok. Noodles and rice, both with some sort of vegetables, cabbage and carrots, and a chicken and vegetables dish. Watermelon on the side. So pretty good on the 5 a day stakes.
Soon after, we pulled up at a village where the boat docked so we could explore. We were one of the last ones off, scrambling around for hats and hunting for Evie’s sunglasses which were eluding us. Then Evie and I got off, only to find no-one following us. The last of the other passengers were disappearing to the left. We stopped to wait and were beckoned over by a monk. ‘Come over here’, he kept saying. Evie and I wandered over to say hello. His English seemed to b limited to certain questions and answers, as he responded to most of my questions about him with a repeat of another question. Once Chris and Aiden finally emerged from the boat he beckoned us into his monastery. We followed, I mean, he’s a monk, so he can’t really be planning anything bad right? Unless he’s pretending to be a monk??
He took us through to their temple, keen to show us a statue of their meditation guide, and keen for us to take a photo. Then he pulled out his large smartphone and asked for a photo of us. This seemed to be his endgame as after this he pretty much shooed us out. ‘Thank you bye bye’. We did find out that he’s a Botany graduate though when he started asking us about our education level. All rather odd and yet another surreal experience in a monastery…
We headed out to fairly bare shores, and started in the direction that the others had gone. With a few choices of paths we eventually found ourselves surrounded by pots and next to people piling them us amongst firewood. On the other side were the rest of the boat, apparently this is a tour and we’d missed the main attraction – watching the villagers make a pot and learning about the pottery business here. Ah well. Our friends Rene and Olivienne filled us in. The village of around 1000 are split between farming and pottery. They make around 35 pots per day using clay from the next valley as they have exhausted most from around here.
We followed the tour group as they moved off to gawp at some school kids who had seemingly been brought out so we could see them?? We passed. Then they went back to school. Our kids were flabberghasted when the kids were all bringing their chairs out, carrying them over their heads, and in all sorts of ways. ‘We aren’t allowed to do that!’ Evie exclaimed and proceeded to instruct me in the one and only way that they are allowed to carry chairs around.
The group then headed back to the boat, boarded over a bouncy wooden plank with a (large) bamboo stick held out by two men as a handrail.
As we pushed off we were facing the wrong way, so had to turn. Whilst turning four people suddenly appeared on the bank, waving their arms around and we recognised two people from the boat! They’d missed it!
To be fair to them, we had left before the end of the 45 minutes we’d been told we’d be stopping for so they weren’t really late. We think the boat people had been round and counted and decided we were all aboard, but either they miscounted or we have stowaways!
They must have been pretty panicked when they saw the boat head off without them! Again, no drama here, a local swimming in the river who had helped the boat cast off, saw them and quickly got out and ran down the bank to his little boat. He then ferried them across, they boarded and we were on our way. Lucky people – a few minutes later and we’d have been downriver and gone – eek!
Seven hours into the journey we started to see some lonely mountains in the distance, other than that, the scenery remained unchanged which was a bit of a shame – only the banks were visible and the river was wide.
As we approached Nyaung-U the sun was setting so we spend the last part of the journey on deck enjoying it. After we’d docked, and whilst we were negotiating with taxi drivers, the sky went a glorious red – if only the boat had been delayed by another 15 minutes!
Seemingly there’s a clubbing together of taxi drivers at the dock here, who were initially asking 20k chat for a taxi ride 10 minutes up the road. After Mandalay prices this felt like daylight robbery! They dropped to 15k easily, and further discussions got us down to 10k, but they would not go lower. On the plus side we ended up in a minivan to ourselves so had lots of space. As we drove out the jetty many cars seemed to be pulling over and we, eventually, gathered that this was a place to buy the tickets for entry to Bagan. It’s pretty clever really, they get everyone on the way in, at the stations, docks and road entrances as the site itself is so big they could never police it.
After buying our tickets, our taxi took us to the hotel where we immediately went upstairs for dinner. Possibly the slowest service dinner ever – I’m sure we were waiting over an hour for our food – the kids were fading away by the time it arrived, especially after their early morning!
The hotel looks nice though, with big spacious rooms, a pool and a rooftop restaurant. I’m looking forwards to four nights here 😊.
Day 82 – Bagan and driving an electric scooter
We enjoyed a breakfast on the roof terrace, before planning our attack a bit more. So much to see here!
The kids were desperate to try out the pool, so we made some time for that and chatted to two other couples there about their experiences so far. They were also trying to figure out where the best places to capture the sunrises and sunsets on camera are – this seems to be the major discussion point around Bagan! People used to climb the stupas for good views, and there were some observation terraces built into some when they were restored, but many of these were damaged in the earthquakes of 2016. Since then the Government have also decided that they do not want people climbing them, partly to preserve these old stupas, but also because people have died or been injured falling from them. Some people still climb them, ignoring signs, climbing fences etc. Two mounds have been built to offer people a slightly raised viewpoint but these are meant to be very busy now. It’s very hard to find recent information!
We decided to get e-bikes. These are basically electric scooters, and are available basically everywhere here, including from the hotels. Very quiet, can get down most the tracks through Bagan and cover a lot of ground, but with less power than a normal scooter and supposedly possible to pick up in half an hour. Sounds like the perfect solution right?
Unfortunately, when we went to pick ours up, the only helmets they had were broken and had no straps i.e. they fell off your head whenever you moved it, so worse than useless in a crash! Not only does this violate our travel insurance, it also goes against everything we know. What to do? After much dithering, and contemplating walking into town to hire them from somewhere else who might have helmets (they are not standard apparently as the locals think there’s no need for them!), our helpful hotel people had sent someone around and gotten some from somewhere. They weren’t great, but they had straps, so they stayed on. Sort of.
Next up, actually driving the things. As someone who’s never even ridden a scooter, let alone driven one, and who doesn’t even get on with a push bike that well, this was hard! Chris got it in seconds but the accelerator was in the wrong direction to where I thought it should be, and it’s hard to remember to stop accelerating whilst braking! A few runs in and I had most of that broadly sorted. The hardest thing was turning though!
Everyone was hungry so I had to learn on the go. Chris took both kids as I couldn’t be trusted with them, luckily the main road was pretty empty at this time, and the road is very wide, so I didn’t have too much issue there. The whole way I was thinking ‘I’m going to die!’ but I guess I was being a bit overly dramatic! A couple of turns later and we were on ‘restaurant road’ and couldn’t resist stopping in the Weatherspoons seeing as that’s where Chris and I met many years ago. Of course it’s not a genuine Weatherspoons chain pub out here! Still, some decent food, although the toilet was across the street and down an alley past someone else’s house. Possibly a bit of a ‘loaner’ toilet? You don’t get that in Weatherspoons in the UK!
After lunch it was time to get into Bagan proper, we tried to take a route up past he golf club, but, whilst there’s a path on the map, it seems that there is now a golf club there and you cannot pass. So we had to turn around and head around the long way on the road. We tried turning off onto one of the trails to go see our first pagoda, but it was down a narrow, sandy track and I really struggled. The bike was all squirming over the place in the sand and the turns were too tight. In the end I had to get off and walk, with the others going ahead. Our first pagoda – yay!
Then I couldn’t turn the stupid heavy thing around and had a mini meltdown. We were never going to get to the sunset place at my pace and I was finding the driving sooo hard! We didn’t have much choice though, so it was deep breaths and onwards, trying to hide my stupid tears of frustration from the kids. What do I always tell them? You can’t always do something first time, you have to keep trying. It would be easier to keep trying if I didn’t feel like I was going to crash and get squished by a bike every second, or dumped in a ditch! Why am I so bad at this?
At this point I was thinking that we’d ditch the bikes the next day as, even after an hour or so of driving, I still hadn’t got it and I wasn’t sure that I could face another day of this. We would just have to get a taxi round ☹.
We returned to the road which was like a breath of fresh air, sooo easy after the tracks. No time to stop at each pagoda, but we stopped at a few which caught our eye. These ones are not particularly large, but they are all a little different. Some are more ornate than others, most have buddha’s inside (which is generally the point of a stupa). You can enter some, whereas others are too small.
We found a large white one, but there was some techno music playing loudly again which rather ruined the peaceful sunset vibe. We were trying to find a hill here where you can watch the sunset. Chris eventually found it, but we were a bit too late and only caught the end. It didn’t seem to be the best place to see the sunset either, with no temples on the horizon.
Rather than hang around with the other people, we decided to backtrack and try to watch the colourful skies from around the temples we’d driven past. It sort of worked, although the sky didn’t go the amazing red that it did last night getting off the boat ☹
With some light left we headed for home, back along the dirt and then tarmac roads. Chris was mislead by Evie’s interpretation of Google Maps on the way back and went the wrong way – haha! They soon caught up with me though and we returned to the hotel where we decided to eat something small. None of us were very hungry. Service was super slow again though.
It occurred to me whilst we were having dinner, that it would be so easy to fly in here, come to a pretty westernised hotel like this one, where they speak pretty good English, go on a tour of some of the sites and go out again having not really experienced the real Myanmar. Not the way we want to do things apparently – I’m almost begrudging them speaking English here and making it too easy!
Day 83 – Bagan take 2, a whole day on the scooter!
The journey back last night had been ok, so I’d not wussed out of the bikes this morning. After an initial argument with my scooter about the stand, we made friends and I named him Bikey. We were aiming for the sunrise so we left the hotel at 5.45; 35 minutes before the sunrise. I’ve never gotten up to see the sun rise before (I’m a night owl) so we thought we had enough time. My suspicions mounted as the roads were empty, then the horizon brightened and we realised we were missing all the fun which happens BEFORE the sun actually breaks the horizon. Amatuers!
With only a map in the dark to get to our chosen location we got kind of lost and ended up charging around on sandy tracks between temples – there were too many trees! We’d given up when yet another person came past on a scooter asking if we’d like to be shown to a site where you can see the sunrise. We emphasised that we didn’t want to climb and they insisted that the places were ok. So we followed them to a small mound on one side of DhammaYanGyi, but the view wasn’t great, and there were too many people already there for a good spot (without people’s heads and cameras in it). The other option was in Old Bagan town itself, where there is still a place you can climb up steps onto the terrace of one. Quite a few people were here, but we managed to find some room and got great views of the infamous balloons floating over the pagodas.
As we headed back, all the birds were coming out and I realised I had forgotten my binoculars – nooo! It was like some form of torture for me to be surrounded by them and not be able to identify any. I told myself that the light wasn’t good enough yet anyway, we looked around a few temples in the early light and then gave in to our stomachs and headed back to the hotel for breakfast.
After refuelling, we headed out again, keen to see as much as we could before the sun got too hot. Luckily, on an e-bike you get a great breeze, so it was never too hot whilst we were moving. We headed out past where we’d been the evening before and, having seen all these ones before and sticking to the wider, not sand pitted tracks, made speedy progress this time. Perhaps I could do this after all, if we stuck to the bigger tracks 😊.
Our destination was the large pagoda DhammaYaZika, although we stopped at some smaller ones along the way. Whilst we’d seen almost no-one on the way down, especially once we were on the thinner tracks, as soon as we arrived at one of the big pagodas, suddenly there were people everywhere! There are buses, tuktuk’s and scooters everywhere, and the streets are lined with souvenir and food stalls. It was a crazy change and quite off-putting. We went in anyway and found it was actually a bit quieter inside.
We carried on towards Old Bagan town. As we approached Myinkaba town a man on a scooter hailed us and asked us about the children. He had two children himself, a boy and a girl, both of whom were at university. Then he asked whether we liked bananas, which is a silly thing to ask Aiden as they’re his favourite food! We were invited back to his house for bananas so we followed. It wasn’t far.
His house was not tiny, but built simply of wood on stilts again, with washing facilities outside. Steps took us up to the one inside living rooms, with one bedroom off it. Inside was cluttered, but sparse of furniture, with the main item being a small altar to the Buddha. We sat on mats on the floor and were offered a large plate of pineapple and banana, and cups of tea. Our host Kokoo-oo and his wife Kmai sat with us and we talked for a bit about our children. Kmai’s English was not as good, but she loved Aiden. She kept calling them our ‘Bagan family’ and said she would be his mama. Aiden was slightly disturbed by the idea!
It wasn’t long before Kokoo-oo mentioned that he was a painter and he reached behind him for a wad of paintings. At least we knew why he’d invited us over. I didn’t feel so bad eating their fruit now! Whilst we were unsure whether he’d really painted them, or was just selling them, we like to collect things to remind us of our travels and to put some cash in local pockets. It seemed like the paintings might survive the journey so we bought a couple. We haggled a little on price, but not hard.
We should probably have haggled harder as they then immediately started trying to get us to have more fruit, offered Evie free bracelets and then invited us to have lunch with them the next day for free! Why not? We agreed a time, Aiden turned down their offer for him to stay with them overnight, and he led us back to the main road.
The main road did not look fun, the busiest road we’d seen, and the pagodas across the road looked busy. So we gave it all a miss and headed back down some smaller roads to the side. I was actually able to say that I was enjoying the biking now. It’s great to be able to explore freely, stopping to look at whichever pagodas catch your fancy, or just ride the bike through the fields!
We did stop at Shwenandaw, which was not very busy at all, as it’s a very pretty pagoda.
As we headed around the side, a young woman suggested we head into the building behind her, which housed a large lying buddha. The building only just fit around it and you had to squeeze along in front!
On the way out she was then asking us to buy her postcard as a thank you, and her friends were there to sell clothes. I wasn’t going to buy anything, having already bought some trousers at Mingun, but they interpreted this as haggling and kept lowering the price. In the end I gave in and got some for Evie and I. I’m so glad – they are the comfiest trousers I have ever worn, and super cool 😊.
After this pagoda, we checked out some ‘beautiful temples’ on Maps.me nearby, which were very pretty. This also seemed like a great place for sunrise, so we decided to come back the next morning.
Arriving in Old Bagan town, we headed for a veggie restaurant, Khaing Shwe Wah. We weren’t very hungry, but they brought out starters and pudding to accompany our drinks and one meal! It was good though, I wished I was hungrier so we could try more of the menu options.
It was hotting up now, so we headed back to the hotel for a dip in the pool. The plan was to go out again for another sunset, but we didn’t actually manage it in the end. Instead we watched a film together on the laptop, and went for dinner in the hotel, which took over an hour again – so much for an early night for the kids again!
Day 84 – Bagan again and a lunch with locals
Another early awakening so we could have a better stab at getting a sunrise. We left 30 minutes earlier today, other people were around and the skies were dark. We’d got it right this time. But then we stopped at a traffic jam! It turned out there was a running race through the temples that morning and it came out onto the road we needed to ride down! There were a whole load of frustrated tourists wondering how long wed be kept waiting and looking anxiously towards the East.
I moved forwards to try to talk to one of the marshals about how long it would be and to see if we could drive around the central reservation and head back the way we’d come, cutting in down another path. They seemed to speak no English and ignored me. Then I’m sure one of them waved us through. Another bike went, followed by me and another tourist. They overtook as I slowed to wait for Chris, but he hadn’t come. I waited but they were then all turned back the way we’d come! There was a queue on the other side of the road too, so I couldn’t get back that way, but we were separated with no way of contacting each other! So I turned back and drove the wrong way down the road to the junction, where they gave me evils but let me follow Chris down the road.
Except he wasn’t there – I was convinced he would have waited for me but he’d gone After going up and down a few times, returning to the place we were separated (which is what we always tell the kids to do) I concluded he must have gone back to the hostel. He had no idea where we were trying to get to. I carried on, thinking that this was our last sunrise chance.
Our spot from the day before proved to be pretty good. I wandered the fields, but another couple arrived with a local and a ladder and they climbed up the pretty temples behind me for a better look. I wander if it really was better than what I saw?
After hanging around for long enough to see the sunrise, I realised that Chris also had the binoculars in his scooter (noooo!) and headed back to the hostel.
They had actually only returned back about 2 minutes before me in fact! Seemingly the lady had NOT waved us through, and they ran after us and in front of others to stop anyone else going. Whoops! Having decided that I’d not be able to get back, Chris and the kids had used Google Maps to get to one of the mounds for the sunrise. It was too busy so they’d just ridden around and looked from various spots before coming back. So at least we all saw the sunrise! I can’t say it was a nice relaxing experience though!
We breakfasted again and then went back out again like yesterday. We headed into an early turning to try to catch the tail end of the best bird time, but it was now 8.30 and they were pretty much gone ☹. I may need to go out again tomorrow…
Then over to Sulameni and Sunset Hill again to check out the daytime views – you can get a good idea of what the Bagan fields look like from here – dotted with pagodas of different sizes
It was getting hot already! There’s a massive car park here so we let the kids have a go at driving, and I had a go with a child on the back. It was fine so Aiden came with me for the rest of the day, where he was much more comfortable.
Checking out a couple more pagodas on the way, we headed into Old Bagan again.
Once in Old Bagan, we went straight to the Ananda temple. Today we stopped and parked up amongst the hordes of souvenir and clothes sellers and headed inside. The Ananda is a very beautiful temple, with carved pale stone, and a double layer of halls inside displaying a range of Buddha sizes, from the sizeable to the small.
From here we headed through the town of Old Bagan, following the line of the old walls north then east looking for the Bupaya temple. This is an odd golden egg shape on the banks of the river in an area that was absolutely heaving with people.
Then it was on to Mahabodhi Paya and GawDawPalin Paya for a few quick shots, but were rather suffering with pagoda fatigue. Just a couple more to go! Mahabodhi Paya is pretty different though, with an interesting pattern to the roof. GawDawPalin is the second tallest in Bagan.
The kids were excited to see the Muhataya Pagoda as I had read that the Buddhas are stuffed in to too small a building. Which was true! A number of large Buddhas pretty much block the passageway and you have to go all the way in to see the largest seated one.
Then around the back there is another room with a massive reclining Buddha. What came first; the building or the Buddha? He must have been built in situ if it’s the former.
By now it was a few minutes to 12, when we were due to have lunch with our ‘Bagan Family’. It was almost as if I’d planned it, and I had, roughly…
We pulled in at 12 on the dot and were greeted warmly. Dinner was served seated on the floor in their lounge/kitchen/dining room and consisted of bowls of chicken pieces, tomatoes, mango salad, vegetables, peanut salad, bananas, pineapple and mini satsumas. All with a massive helping of rice.
We tucked in and chatted about various things, we showed them pictures of our supermarkets, discussed differences in education offerings, talked about our house, found out that they rent this one from his sister. They also showed us their coin collection, which we thought they were trying to add to, but actually wanted us to buy any English coins off them as they are worthless to them here!
All throughout they kept joking about adopting Aiden (and Evie), with Kokoo-oo trying to trick Aiden into a ‘pinky promise’ to stay with them in a sort of finger wrestle. Aiden seemed to be enjoying this, and we were surprised to see such a recognisable gesture here for sealing promises!
After a couple of hours, feeling full and contented, we said our goodbyes and drove back to Nyaung Shwe, looking for one last pagoda – the Shwezigon. This is a smaller version of the massive Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon.
We seemed to have missed the main entrance, as it seemed to just be a wooden doorway into a market, but a lady waved at us to park up and come in, after removing our shoes. Inside there’s a long, covered market area, the main parking area on the other side and steps to the pagoda. There were also lots of people interested in our children again! One woman was so excited to see Aiden she couldn’t keep still!
The pagoda area itself is dripping with gold. The main stupa is gold coated, and surrounded by other gold covered stupas. Then around the area there are other ornate temples with Buddhas within.
We headed back to the hotel down the now-familiar main road for another dip in the pool to cool down before heading back out for dinner at Bibo’s restaurant in town. Here we had some delicious burgers with a twist – green and black buns – odd but yum!
Then back to bed.
Day 85 – Bagan birdwatching and the night bus
After quite a few early mornings and late nights waiting for food, the others were not keen for an early up and the kids were demanding a rest day. My desire to spot birds was not satisfied though, so I woke early again and headed out (luckily not as early as for the sunrise!!). Clearly I’m feeling at home on the ebike now!
I was definitely the odd one out, and the various guides were very confused when they found me by the side of the road looking in the opposite direction to the sunrise!
I had forgotten one thing though in my choice of spot – the coachloads of people that are bused to the man made mounds for the sunrise. As I tried to head down that way to the lakes there, coach after coach was leaving. As it was a single track dirt road I didn’t fancy it, so had to hang around where I was for quite a while before the road cleared!
At least by the time I got there it was empty. I wandered around the lakes here and some other pagodas before it got too hot, making it back for breakfast time.
The rest of the day was spent by the pool, and then out for a lunch at a recommended local restaurant, before returning the bikes. Bye bye Bikey! In the end I loved riding about on it, as did the kids. Bagan has turned out to be a very fun few days 😊.
After dinner at the hotel (again!) we packed and waited for our night bus pickup at 9. It finally arrived at 9.45pm, but the bus got underway pretty quickly after we arrived at the station. We’d chosen the expensive JJ Express buses, so had a fair bit of space and seats that reclined pretty far. Sleep might have been ok had it not been for the constant stops to let people on/off or for the toilet. Arriving at 5am also didn’t help us get a good night!
Check out the next post at Lake Inle and on to Yangon (coming soon), or read about our exploration of three of the old capitals around Mandalay.