Myanmar : Bagan

I was sitting on a night bus in Inle patiently waiting for it to leave the station. My seat, with the broken recline and dud entertainment system, was to be my bed for the night and after an hour I was wondering why we hadn’t yet moved. The word was that we were waiting for a couple of people who were late – I was quite annoyed at this point, if they missed the bus surely that’s their fault! After a while longer it transpired it was actually two monks who were late, and out of respect we must wait. Right. Apparently they were just ten minutes away. Eventually a few of us got off to go to the toilet, just as another bus pulled up alongside ours and two elderly monks got out – now the monks must wait for us 🙏

Almost as soon as we set off, the bus stopped, of course, for a noodle break, where I ate the noodles even though I’d just had dinner and took a sneaky pic of the monks. I didn’t get one of them smoking fags and sharing a mobile phone unfortunately 😂

After three more stops and zero sleep, I probably wasn’t in the best of moods when we arrived at dawn to watch the famous balloons floating over Bagan, an image I’d had in my head for a while – serene hot air balloons floating over hundreds and hundreds of ruined temples as the sun rises…. Instagram vs reality strikes again!

What actually happened is that we arrived at a hill top along with what felt like thousands of Chinese tourists, all brandishing huge zoom lenses and munching loudly on corn. As we jostled for space, getting the evil eye from all sides, with no balloons to be seen and most temples obscured by trees, I wondered what we were missing. I’m still confused by how it was light before the sun had actually risen – at 6.30am Inke and I were convinced we’d missed the sunrise and were on the verge of leaving before the main event 😂 This is the problem with having expectations – lesson learned!

Bagan is an ancient city, where between the 11th and 13th centuries over 10,000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and monasteries were built. Almost 3,000 of their ruins remain today. Determined to get off the beaten track and see the real Bagan, the next day I convinced Inke and Lucy they wanted to ride bicycles and track down a ‘secret’ temple (let’s call it Pagoda X) that somebody had told me about.

However, the best way to get around is on a scooter. As we set off on our bicycles and every man and his dog and 12 year old kid passed us on scooters, we all had the same thought – wouldn’t this be more fun on a real bike?! Our guide Leo put in a call to bring some scooters over after we’d had a practice go on his.

How hard can it be, right?! Very, it turns out – apparently none of us were capable of turning a corner without revving the engine and speeding off out of control 😂

As I skidded to a stop, let go of the scooter without turning off the ignition and sent it crashing to the ground whilst crying tears of laughter, three people from the scooter company pulled up with our vehicles. They promptly turned around and left as Leo just shook his head and waved them on their way again without saying a word 🙈

I maintain that if we’d had a bit longer to practice and could have ridden in a straight line out of town not stopping at any junctions, we’d have been just fine. But travelling is a fine line between #yolo (you only live once) and blatant stupidity, so we got our uninsured selves back on our trusty bicycles (only £2 for the day) armed with a map, water and a few bananas, and despite the 35 degree heat and no gears to speak of we had the best day of the trip so far. In fact it was top three days of my entire journey 😎

Remember there are thousands of ruined temples and pagodas here. If you have the means to go off road, you can visit as many as you like. They are only known by number and most aren’t on the map. Unfortunately for us but perhaps for the good of the structures, climbing them is now forbidden and most of the hidden stairways have been blocked off. Looking for secret doors was still a thrill! As is the freedom of having all day and nowhere to be, the ability to go wherever you want and some great people to do it with 😎

It’s very hard to put into words the beauty of this place and the feeling of looking around and seeing nothing and nobody other than hundreds of ruined temples around you and on the horizon.

These two short videos are only a glimpse – imagine this scene laid out in every direction and around every corner and you’ll get the idea.

The rusty old bikes survived although Lucy seemed to have lost her brake pads altogether by the end, despite narrowly avoiding punctures from thorn trees (we remembered Leo’s warning about staying on the paths far too late) and all the skidding when the paths turned to sand then disappeared altogether. Every few minutes somebody would shout ‘Sand! Look out!’ and nearly fall off 😂

I put my bike to the test when at 17.30 I realised I’d left my treasured sand painting that I’d bought earlier in the day (it’s a tradition here to use sand on fabric) in Pagoda X when we were halfway up the hidden staircase. I bombed it back through the sand, having faith it would still be there (unless the one person we had seen near there had nicked it) shouting encouragement at the old girl and praying I didn’t meet a scooter on the way.

We didn’t stop until the sun went down, chasing the sunset at the end of the day, covered in dirt and dust but thoroughly happy and finishing the day off with a curry and beer at local vegetarian restaurant. Success!

Whilst in Bagan we also took a guided trip around the biggest temples but this wasn’t nearly as much fun. I should probably mention them, so here are a few more photos!

Days later, Inke had a closer look at the map our guide Leo had sent us, and realised Pagoda X was marked on there all along. Or was it?! 🤔

I didn’t get to see the balloons – as it turned out they didn’t go up due to weather conditions that day, but that’s OK. I really didn’t want to leave Bagan behind, but the road to Mandalay was calling…