A little more of Bagan

I will freely admit that I was dragging my feet, so to speak, all the way to Bagan. Maybe I'd just grown weary from travel, or Myanmar, which in many ways is not up to speed for tourism yet. So I was pleasantly surprised by everything we saw in Bagan. It is truly a very special place, and though remote, I know that it will begin to be on the Western tourist's radar and will no doubt change rapidly, as did Siem  Riep in Cambodia. It was quite a change to be in the minority of pilgrims at these pagodas and we are still a bit of a novelty.No doubt that will wear off soon enough! As I told Jim, Myanmar has some remarkable treasures and I just hope they do a good job of protecting and preserving them. 

This is a group of Burmese that came to pray before Buddha. Notice the feet tucked to one side, as one never points their feet directly at Buddha out of respect.

Imagine seeing clusters of these pagodas all across a dusty landscape. It reminded me a lot of Africa, if Africa had pagodas scattered throughout the plains. I believe most, if not all of these pagodas were originally plastered over, then painted a gleaming white, as some of the newer ones are. I really like the appearance of the brick and they blend into the landscape nicely. Just think how well preserved these are after hundreds of years! Of course I would know much ( much! )more of the actual history had we opted for being part of a tour, or hired a private guide as we saw others doing. 

Which brings me to travel choices. Jim and I looked into guided tours( expensive in Myanmar) and got some expert advice from people who have traveled here somewhat recently. In the end, we decided that we could handle the travel arrangements on our own. We know from previous travel, be it a group package tour, or making our own arrangements for private guides as we did in Africa, that once you are "on the train", so to speak you go where the train, or guide wants to take you, and rarely the other way around. Sometimes this is fine, but other times you are held captive by your guide as they want to give you the best and most complete tour. We liked being free to have a driver take us on a route ( and they drove only, no extra info, partly due to limited English ),leaving us free to explore in our own and we could decide when we'd had enough.

It's true that we don't get the whole history of a place, but I find that even when we've gone with a guide, I'll have forgotten all that history by the next day. I am happy to just wander at my own pace and hear the occasional snippet of info from one of the English speaking guides. This seems to work for both of us. 

The other thing we were told about Myanmar was that it is a cash only society, and that we shouldn't expect to find many ATM s ,especially once we left Yangon,the main city. And we were also told to bring dollars in mint condition only- no folds, tears, blotches,etc. So we brought a wad of new $100s, and fretted that we wouldn't have enough cash. If I fear no decent  wifi connection, Jim fears no ATMs, as his favorite thing when traveling is to hit the first ATM and get some local currency. Then he is a happy traveler! So we were pleasantly surprised to find that things have changed here fast, and ATMs are virtually everywhere! Also, more businesses like hotels and some more upscale restaurants will accept credit cards . Yay! We Americans do like our credit cards. They may have to use the manual before making a transaction, and they really prefer cards with a chip in them, but it is much easier than we expected, and we mostly pay in the local currency. 

Ok, I hope that wasn't too boring for those of you who like photos...

After our morning spent visiting pagodas, and discovering that they all start to look the same after about the 5 th one, we decided to head back to our hotel for lunch and a cooling off period- literally. 

It was really quite pleasant in our air conditioned cab, though, and it made for an easier day. I meant to ask the woman who offered to share her horse drawn carriage how she liked it.

One of the Italians at our guest house told me about two hotels where we could swim at their pools, so we decided to check it out in the afternoon. One was close by, but the way he described the other place made it sound even better. So we hired a taxi to drive us to the Aureum Palace hotel. When Jim found out that he was going to charge 9$ to drive us there, and that it was almost out at the airport, he  had a little fit. True, I did not check ahead of time about cost, etc. but it all turned out ok, because that hotel is arguably one of the best in Bagan and though we each had to pay $10 to swim, it felt like true luxury! 

As soon as we reached the resort and got a glimpse of the infinity pool with pagodas in the distance, we knew it was worth the price. I told jim " there are pools, and there are POOLS!"

We got nice big towels and comfortable lounge chairs for as long as we cared to stay.

This is the tower of the hotel. Probably some fab sunset views there! 

And they even had an ATM in the lobby! jim quickly came around,meand even said if we were in Bagan longer, he would come there everyday...

Reluctantly leaving this beautiful place.