B is for Bagan

I had an amazing night sleep in the cold enclosed rooftop dorm until the prayers kicked in around 0600. I had been warned about lots of chanting from 0400 but it either didn’t happen or I had slept through it.

After a simple but big breakfast, I rented a bicycle for less than USD2 for the day to explore the temples of Bagan, setting off at 0900.With so much time at hand on the boat yesterday, I had kinda read up about the various temples and the pick of the bunch.

But I put all that aside and just started cycling, exploring and enjoying the scenery that was dotted with big stupas and clusters of small ones. In between these were scrubland, homes, stalls and the odd nice café.

I dropped into various stupas and temples for a visit. At first, my feelings were “Wow, that’s beautiful” but with each passing visit, my enthusiasm waned and eventually got to “Yeah, whatever”.

To be honest, the stupas and temples don’t compare with Angkor Wat (Siem Reap) and Prambanan (Yogyakarta) in terms of the architecture or intricacy of patterns. Here, some are gilded, some are plastered white but many are just bare brick. B is for Bagan, B is for bricks, bare bricks.

At each temple, there were often souvenir and trinket sellers. I feel very guilty about not supporting them and the local economy (beyond hotel, food and transport). These vendors are a valid business but they just don’t sell anything I want (or want to carry).

Having already been a bit jaded with the Buddhist sights in Yangon and Mandalay, I’m surprised that I enjoyed exploring Bagan. The highlight for me was being on a bicycle going through the countryside that was dotted with all these temples … more so than visiting the individual temples.

Largely, it was good pleasant cycling as the area is quite flat. The only annoyance was having to cycle on the sandy bits to get to some of the stupas, and having to dismount once in a while.

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The journey back through a different road proved more tiring as it was a bit undulating. It was only when I got back around 1330 that I realised I had covered around 18km. And it hurts spending all that time on a bicycle seat; not used to having something hard like that between my legs.

Bagan is where I’m starting to enjoy myself again. It is cheaper, has a nice atmosphere (sans traffic chaos), great for meeting people (finally), and there’s a nice mix of local and touristy stuff. What a contrast to moments in non-central Mandalay where I could hardly find anything to eat or anyone to speak to.

Back at the hostel in the evening, I offered my private shower to my former dorm-mates as their shower wasn’t working. As it turned out, mine only had hot water and no cold. The Czech guy found the hot water far too hot and resorted to using the handheld bidet by the toilet as his shower. While it isn’t a nice thought, there’s perfectly nothing wrong.