Off to Bagan

  Bagan, Mandalay, Myanmar Saturday, October 25, 2014

We made it to the station in plenty of time and found our carriage easily enough. It was with a fair amount of trepidation that we climbed the steps to it as we really did not know what to expect. We knew we had a sleeper and would therefore have our own bed but beyond than we could only imagine. Well our worst fears were not realised and to our delight we found out that we had one of the few "special carriages" they put on sometimes. This means that instead of having a traditional layout of a long corridor with compartments down the side, this carriage was divided into 4 compartments all with their own entrance from the platform and each compartment has its own toilet and is shared by just 4 people. Another couple were already in their seats and we all soon got chatting. Vivienne was a Malaysian lady living in Singapore and Amatin was a Russian chap also living in Singapore and they had come to Myanmar for a 6 day holiday. They both seemed really nice and we all got on well. The train ran on a narrow gauge track and was extremely bouncy. When we say extremely bouncy, we mean hold on for dear life extremely bouncy. We were being thrown from side to side and up in the air. Nobody warned the ladies that they needed to wear sports bras for a train journey! As it got darker in the evening, the bugs came in through the open windows. We did have the option to pull a solid screen down to keep them out but that would have stopped all our ventilation and as the only fan in our compartment didn't work, we would all have been quite miserable. So we left the windows open and just did battle with the hundreds of grasshoppers and lacewings that blew in. Overnight the train swung, shook and shuddered as it travelled towards Bagan. Bryan was on the top bunk and was literally being thrown up in the air as he tried to sleep. We woke at first light all parched, tired and black and blue. There was a nice sunrise but it didn't really make up for the lack of sleep. The air was dry with a whiff of burning wood, and outside the landscape had changed. Lush paddy fields had made way for dusty scrubland studded with palms. Through the frame of our train window Burma rolled past like a film about Old Asia, bamboo huts, smiling children, all going so slowly. By 11am we were in Bagan, the country's architectural masterpiece, with a some 4,000 temples, pagodas and stupas on the banks of the Irrawaddy. It was in the 11th century that rulers here began 200 years of frenzied construction and created this exquisite spiritual landscape reflecting Buddhist, Hindu and animist history. But our Hotel was much less impressive and looked more like something out of a 1950's holiday camp sit com! We'd shared a taxi (actually just a pick up truck with us in the back with the luggage) with Vivienne and Amatin as their hotel was a bit further along than ours but in the same general direction (and they had a pool - we hate them already (not really :-)) and waved them off - still in the back of the pick up. The people in our hotel as always though were absolutely lovely and and our room was nice too. Hey after the night we had just had anywhere was going to be better! First job a good long hot shower and wash our hair to get all the train dirt off us. As we had had the windows open all that way we were covered in dust. Then a snooze. We were shattered. Actually a snooze turned into a 4 hour nap before we decided to get out whilst there was still some daylight and wandered across the road to a huge temple that was there. It was similar in it's design to the Pagoda we had visited in Yangon but this one was much smaller and not so beautiful. A little faded around the edges let's say. We walked around the back and some ladies ushered us into small shrine which was to a dragon. The dragon was said to be lucky. A really old lady grabbed hold of Jody and started chanting and waving a dish of things around. In the dish was a cup of milk, a glass of water, a rose, some rice and some bread. It all had it's place in this ritual and at the end they demanded 2000kyats. £1.50 for some luck from a dragon - can't be bad! Well it had been a really long day and we were both very tired so we hit the hay early and looked forward to tomorrow when we could begin exploring this ancient town. [gallery columns="4" ids="8802,8812,8817,8825,8832,8840,8846,8853,8857,8863,8866,8868,8874,8875,8880,8883,8889,8895,8900,8905,8912,8916,8919,8923,8925,8927,8931,8936,8940,8943,8945,8948,8951,8955,8957,8959,8962,8964,8966,8968,8969,8971"]