I love Bagan. Staying in Nyaung U, the town nearby. Very relaxing and enjoy watching life. Mix of old and new, as there are farmers with ox and carts carrying loads, old trucks, new cars and motorbikes, older women carrying market purchases on their heads, men in traditional longgyi, and a few teenagers in western jeans. The temples are fantastic and everywhere. They say there are 3000-4000 in this area alone. My horse and cart driver took me to some really great ones (one even with bats hanging from the large Buddha statue). Each temple has a key master to let you in, and you have to wander around looking for him at the smaller ones with no people. The bigger ones have guides, and there are young trainee guides who just graduated and have to practice before becoming a real guide. They showed me around and taught me a lot, an then you give them feedback at the end. One had his teacher with him, who filmed us so I might end up in some video for Burma tourism.
Had a lovely dinner of my favorite dish here, Shan noodles, for 50 cents with an ER nurse from Scotland who just finished volunteering in Kota Kinabalu, Borneo (my final destination). The food is pretty greasy here, but the fresh fruit and vegetables are delicious.
Morning was spent negotiating a ride to Mt. Popa, a temple with monkeys up in the mountains. Found a ride for me and 3 girls from Spain. Spending the day with them made me glad to be traveling alone, as they talked non-stop, didn't pay much attention to their surroundings, and were dressed in short shorts and skimpy tanks which would be like showing up to your friend's church in night club attire. The locals interaction (and cost of things) with us was very different than when I am alone. But the weather was cooler, the view was pretty, and the monkeys were entertaining when not being aggressive and trying to steal bags.
Nice to see the village life, with traffic stopping for the herds of cow, oxen and goats in the road. Children and adults all wave hello. Also saw peanuts being ground into peanut oil using an ox around a circle to grind (he even let me try).
Napped during the heat if the day, like everyone else and took a walk to the jetty in the evening to watch the sun set as the men and women bathed and washed clothes and the children all played in the Arewaddy River. Not much to do at night but watch American action movies with Burmese subtitles (and the power goes out in town frequently), so just enjoyed a Myanmar beer under the bagazillion stars.
This morning, I woke up super early. Decided to walk the couple of miles to watch the sun rise from the top of a temple. I found myself walking with a procession of monks, and one little monk boy hung back and walked with me. He pointed out things he thought I might like a smiled the sweetest smile. As we finally parted ways, he motioned for me to hold my hand out. As I did, he dropped two earrings in my hand (2 little plastic letters, P and D, with sparkles on them) and smiled a huge smile before running off to join the older monks.
The sunrise was rather overcast, but there was a cool breeze and it was beautiful to see the sun rays cast light over the different temples. Spent most of the day eating fruit ice cream to cool off and jamming out to local Burmese music, and talking to locals at the local tea shop. They taught me several Burmese phrases with lots of laughter at my horrible pronunciation. Saying my goodbyes as tomorrow I have an early departure (5am) on the local slow boat up the Arewaddy River to Mandalay that supposedly takes two days and stops in lots of little villages to pick people up and drop people off. Then trying to head north for trekking through villages outside of Hsipaw (I have been given advice, which I will follow, on where not to go due to safety issues). No Internet for at least a few days.
Okay, I better get this sent off in case the power goes out again. Chan na, chan da ba ze (good health and good wealth in Burmese, although that is probably spelled wrong, since they could only write it using Burmese letters).
Love,
Betsy
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