Temples Temples Everywhere - day 1

  Bagan, Mandalay, Myanmar Sunday, October 26, 2014

This morning we had been wondering how to get around and see the sights Bägan has to offer. The real magic of Bagan lies in the countryside with hundreds of temples rising up out of the trees. We had been thinking about a bicycle or an electric bike and those would have been ok for visiting the old city. However, Myanmar is still learning about catering for tourists and unfortunately providing maps isn't yet one of their priorities and the only map we could find was a large one painted on a board at our hotel. This makes navigating your own way around difficult - not impossible as we had google maps but that doesn't show you where all the best temples are. As we were leaving our hotel, as Asia has proved time and time again, everything comes to you and a man came up to us and asked if we would like a horse for they day. We have to admit, that was not one of the options we had been considering but as he talked it sounded better and better. He would drive us around in a carriage for the day, take us to all the best places or wherever we wanted to go for US$25 (£15). This is a lot of money on our budget but as we were talking it became clear a lot of the roads in the countryside were sand and not really suitable for riding a bike through anyway. Add to this the incredible heat and we were sold. As long as the horse looked healthy and well looked after then we would do it. Animal welfare plays a big part of any decision we make like this and it is sometimes a difficult choice for us. The men that own the horse and carts are often the poorest of all the transport options and some of them do have very skinny horses. The dilemma then is do we take this option then at least the driver will be able to use our money to feed his horse, or do we show our objection to the state of the horse by refusing to take a ride. It seems like the latter option no one wins but again we don't want a skinny horse to work hard. Anyway, on this occasion, the horse was fine. Rambo his name was. Our driver was Cheeleh and off we went. The morning started off fairly cool and we were relaxing nicely as Rambo trotted along. Cheeleh told us all about his family and was pointing out the sites as we went (something we would not have known ourselves on a bike). Then we turned off onto a sand road and the temples started popping out at us from all sides. They were everywhere. For an archaeological site of such stature there are very few tourists, and those who come focus on a few of the larger temples.  The remainder lie empty. We got off to explore one or two but there were just too many to chose from. Cheeleh informed us there are over 14,000 temples here but i don't think they have the exact number. Many date from the 12th & 13th C but a couple were restored in the 17th C. Whilst in one of the temples a man showed us where the archeological society has cleaned up patches of some of the frescos. In another we were told people lived in the temple during WWII and you could still see the smoke from their fires on the roof. Outside just about every temple we went to, were crafts men and women and stall holders selling their products. Most things only cost a few £s and it would be easy to spend a fortune. we managed to avoid doing that but we still got drawn in for a few things. The day was getting hotter and we thought it was about time we all stopped for a rest and a drink. Cheeleh took us to a small village where 100 families live. There was a small restaurant/cafe where we could get a drink and Bryan - never one to miss an opportunity - took a quick nap too. The a lovely young girl named Twai Twai offered to show us around the village. We saw their houses, their kitchens and their bedrooms. They have one big family bed (a wooden frame with a bamboo mat on it) where they all sleep together and we will never moan about our beds being hard ever again after seeing that! Well, we probably still will if we are honest but their bed looked like torture! She also showed us some skills and crafts of the village from chopping of food for the cows, to grinding of peanuts to make oil for cooking with. Peanuts are the main crop grown in this region and earlier today, Cheeleh had pulled some from the ground for us to see and try. I don't think we had ever had peanuts like it - they tasted like baby hazelnuts when you pick those straight from the trees too.Cotton is also an important crop here and we had seen the ploughing and the sowing of the new cotton seed in many places here. We were invited to sit and watch 2 old ladies were sitting on the floor spinning cotton grown here in the village. Twai Twai told us the eldest lady was 89 and every day she still spins the cotton into thread ready for dying and weaving. The other lady - slightly younger was smoking the biggest hand rolled cigar we have ever seen. We were shown how they weave on a loom and had the option to buy finished articles afterwards, Trouble is we just don't have enough space or money for all these beautiful things. Twai Twai got very excited when she found out we were from England, "oh I love One Direction" she screamed and went on to show us clips on them on her phone. Cheeleh took us to one temple - which was probably our favourite today - as we could climb up the steep stone stairs inside it and go to the top. With our feet burning on the hot bricks of the roof we just stopped to gawp and the view. 360º of trees and temples. The sight of quite literally 100's of temple peaks reaching up out of the tree tops was just stunning. I know we use this word a lot but there is not a better word to use. It was so peaceful up there too. All we could hear was the birds singing. It was also very very hot up here so we couldn't stay there too long. We took some video and you can watch that here if you want to Off we went again and the next stop on our tour was another fascinating temple with some beautiful frescos inside. Monks in raspberry-coloured robes shuffled by and we noticed one of the Buddhas had gold leaf flaking off him and the gold was all over the floor. Next stop was lunch and oh what a lunch. It was a traditional Myanmar restaurant and all vegetarian. The waitress brought out dish after dish after dish. So much food and all of it was unusual and absolutely delicious. A lot of peanuts are used in their cooking and the flavours were amazing. We did a spot of souvenir browsing whilst we were here. Everywhere we have been we get ambushed (in a nice way) by people selling many different things including postcards. We were hounded again here but then a little boy approaches us and whips out his postcards for us to see. Well we struggled not to burst out laughing as all the postcards were ones he had drawn and coloured in himself! They were terrible! and he wanted 1000k for them the cheek! His cheek paid off as Bryan gave him 1000k and he went off happy. Problem is he has probably gone off to do some more now thinking he is a great drawer. I hope he is learning something better than that at school as he won't get away with it when he isn't so little anymore :-) We had had the most wonderful day but we were really tired by now (and skint!) so we went to find our horse . Time for Rambo to take us home now.... [gallery columns="4" ids="9034,9035,9036,9037,9038,9039,9040,9041,9042,9043,9044,9045,9047,9050,9052,9053,9055,9056,9058,9059,9060,9062,9064,9067,9071,9075,9079,9085,9090,9094,9101,9105,9112,9114,9119,9124,9129"]