We arrived at yet another ungodly hour in the morning to Mandalay, Myanmar's second city. From the bus station we caught a cab that brought us to our hotel. I distinctly remember tailing a delivery truck with its flatbed open and 2 young men sleeping in the back with their heads literally hanging over the edge, just a foot from the ground. One thing is for sure, South East Asians can sleep anywhere, anytime, and in any situation.
For some reason that is beyond me, night buses in Myanmar always leave in the late afternoon, at around 4-6pm. The roads used to be in extremely poor condition and the buses would arrive in the morning. Now that the roads have been drastically improved, these same buses usually arrive at 3-4am when visibility is at an all time low and finding accommodation and getting your bearings is extremely difficult.
We took a lot of night buses not only because we are cheap and wanted to save on accommodation, but because our 15 day time period in Myanmar was just, and I mean just, enough time to fit in everything we wanted to do. If I were to do it again, and if you were to do the same itinerary as we did, I would definitely recommend at least 3 weeks, with time to really enjoy each city and to interact with the people.
After getting some early morning shuteye, we were already on our way to our first stop of the day: Mandalay Palace and Fort. Our hotel wasn't located that far from the fort, but since the only entrance open to foreigners is the east one, we ended up having to walk quite a distance to get there. I haven't really been mentioning this, but we were smack right in the middle of the hot, dry season. If you think that it is always hot in South East Asia, then you are correct, but this time of year is in fact the hottest. So unnecessary walking is not always welcome.
Mandalay was the capital of the Burmese Empire in 1861, and remained so until the British took it over in 1885. Mandalay is the only Burmese city that seems somewhat like an actual city, due to the continual investments of the Chinese.
The fort and palace itself are actually reconstructions because they were burned to the ground during the second world war. The interiors of these buildings aren't very impressive, but the sheer scale and the exterior architecture of the complex was.
The highlight of our time at the palace was happening upon a group of young monks at the top of one of the towers. We took pictures with the group and it made these otherwise mediocre interiors worthwhile.
After wandering around the monstrous grounds and grabbing a beverage to cool down, we made our way to Kuthodaw Paya.
The golden pagoda looks quite similar to the other pagodas we have seen so far, but this temple is distinguished by the fact that each one of the surrounding white kyauksa gu (stone inscription caves) contains a stone slab detailing 2 pages of the tipitaka (the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism).
There are a total of 729 of these caves and this is recognized as the world's largest book. I was just admiring the contrast between the golden central stupa and the pristine white structures surrounding it.
Our final stop of the day was Mandalay Hill for sunset. To reach the top of this 230m view above the surrounding plains, you have to climb up stairs for 45 minutes (I'm not sure how the math adds up but either way it's well worth it). Because it is a sacred place, you have to do it barefoot.
On top, we were treated to a beautiful view over the Shan hills, the Ayeyarwady River and the palace grounds.
We spent a while here enjoying the view and letting the sweat on our backs dry from the gruelling climb.
The following day we started off visiting Shwenandaw Kyanug Monastery which has the distinction of being built entirely out of wood. It is also the only remaining part of the original Mandalay Palace.
After, we made our way to Mahamuni Paya, whose main draw is a 4m-tall Buddha statue that is covered in 15cm of gold leaf due to the degree of veneration the population has for it.
In this same complex are several pillaged artifacts from Angkor Wat in Cambodia. If you'll notice in the photo, I'm wearing what looks like a skirt. It is called a Longyi, a Burmese sarong that most men wear in everyday life. I eventually bought one and would frequently ask hotel staff to teach me how to tie it properly, although it would still frequently loosen or fall off. When in Myanmar.
That afternoon we would be visiting a series of ancient cities on the outskirts of Mandalay. The first one was Sagaing. What really sets this city apart is its location. Built upon rolling hills, from the top it is remarkable to see all the stupas dotting the surrounding area.
The only downside is that all of these stupas require you to remove your footwear and I literally had to run around them because my tender western feet could not handle the heat generated by some of the stone tiles.
Our next stop was Inwa, or Ava, which was a former capital of Burma from the 14th-16th centuries. This to me was the highlight of the day. We were brought around to crumbling ruins by horse-drawn carriage, although it was more of a cart, and explore the rural country side.
We stopped to explore numerous ruins, some so decrepit you would have no idea that they were once majestic royal architecture.
One of the signature temples we stopped at was Bagaya Monastery, a teak structure built in 1834 and supported by 267 posts.
From there we saw the Nanmyin watchtower in the distance, before finally stopping at the Maha Aungmye Bonzan, a beautiful brick and stucco monastery from 1822. I thoroughly enjoyed this building due to its colours. What I didn't like and the only time in Myanmar I experienced this, was young children following us the entire time repeating "money" over and over and over again. I really hope that the people of Myanmar don't turn to begging with the increased influx of tourists.
Our final stop of the day was Amarapura, or the City of Immortality. This city is famed for U Bein 's Bridge: its 200 year old, 1.2km teak bridge. This was the perfect final stop to a perfect day in the region surrounding Mandalay.
After groggily walking in the wrong direction, we finally found our guesthouse, the May Kha Lar and checked in. It was fortunate that we arrived so early because the best introduction to Bagan is to watch the sunrise.
On our first day, to get an authentic feel of things, we hired a horse-drawn carriage to bring us to Old Bagan and I donned my Longyi. Despite being uncomfortable, slow and smelly; it was still rather enjoyable.
Our first introduction to the vast plains of Bagan would be from the top of Buledi temple. While not in pitch darkness like my first sight of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, it was still beautiful seeing the numerous temples dotting the arid countryside with vivid green trees jutting out of the reddish ground.
From here we visited Iza Gawna, the Winido Group, Nandamannya Pahto, Payathonzu, Thambula Pyata, Tayok Pye Paya, Lay Myet, and Hsinphyashin Monastery.
First of all, the only reason I have all these names is because I reflected after each day, looked at numerous maps and wrote down where we visited after having visited them. The sheer volume of temples and almost unpronounceable names made it quite difficult to describe to others what we visited on each day.
The Bagan Archaeological zone covers 41 square kilometres of land. From the 9th-13th centuries, Bagan was the capital city of the Pagan empire. During the Kingdom's pinnacle, over 10,000 temples, pagodas and monasteries were constructed. This massive place of worship and education attracted monks and students from neighbouring India and Cambodia (then the Khmer Empire), and as far as Sri Lanka.
Despite numerous natural disasters and wars, over 2000 of the original structures still remain in various states of disrepair. Those made of wood have surely vanished, but the grandeur and majesty is still very palpable while exploring these beautiful plains.
We tried to go to Pyathada Paya but it was closed. Undeterred, we went to two of the plains' heavy hitters next: Sulamani Pahto and Dhammayangi Pahto.
The Sulamani temple was built in 1183 and is one of the most frequented in the plains.
The Dhammayangi Pahto was built in 1167-1170 and has the distinction as being the biggest temple in all of Bagan.
The remaining temples of the day were Shwesandaw Paya, Gubyaukgyi, Nagayon, Abeyadana Pahto, Nan Paya, Manuha Paya and finally Mingalazedi Paya.
I could go in to detail of the origins and years that each of these structures were constructed, but I just want to illustrate the magnitude of how incredible this region really is.
We decided that the horse-drawn buggy wasn't the ideal way to explore this landscape and decided to rent bicycles the following day. As luck would have it, I was stuck with a lemon which had a flat tire, making the already difficult ride even harder. At least the temples we visited made up for this inconvenience.
Our first stop of the day was Lawkachanthar Paya. From there we went to Thagyar Hit Paya, Thagyarpone Paya, Htilominlo Pahto, Upali Thein and Khaymingha.
The following temple was another of the most revered in Bagan: Anada Pahto. It was built in 1105 and is one of the only original (not reconstructed) surviving temples of Bagan. It is truly incredible and has been described by Wikipedia as the Westminster-Abbey of Burma. I can agree with that.
From here we went to Tabathya Stupa, Thatbyinnyu Pahto (Bagan's tallest temple), Nathlaung Kyang (the only remaining Hindu temple at Bagan), the platform stupa (probably not it's Burmese name), Mimalaung Kyaung, Gawsawpalin Pahto, Myettaw Pyay, and the two-tiered Shwegugyi temple from which we watched the sunset.
After 2 days of exploration, Mike had had enough. He decided that he would lounge by the pool while I would take his bike out and attempt to explore the plains one final time. Unfortunately I didn't write down which temples I visited that day, but I did revisit some of the ones we had done on the previous days and sought out those that you could climb up and were treated to fantastic panoramic views of the surrounding country-side.
In the hot season I would highly recommend either bringing a lot of water with you or going with someone else or both. While I was cycling through the desert-like landscape in the blistering sun on a bike that is not built for speed nor facility, I found my vision going black for a brief amount of time and had to get off and walk my bike. As luck would have it, the next temple I arrived at had a child selling ice cold water out of a cooler. My saviour had arrived! I guess I'm a Buddhist now.
After re-hydrating and taking some sexy pics on this heavenly temple, I decided to make my way to Shwesandaw Paya for the sunset. Not only was the temple surprisingly packed by Bagan standards, but there was a tourist police checking people's tickets!
All foreign visitors are supposed to pay a 10$ entrance fee to the Archaeological site, but we never encountered anyone to pay, or really anyone else that "worked" there in order to buy our ticket, so I wasn't going to pay for my final temple visit of the entire 3-day period.
While I was contemplating what to do, watching the sun slowly set and the photographic splendour that was unfolding around me; I was struck by divine intervention, or perhaps just the bottled water that was sold to me by that child, and I had a shit-attack that made me have to run to the nearest (aka only) cafe in the area and relieve myself.
I guess I wasn't going to have to pay for the ticket or see the sunset for that matter. I was shit out of luck (bad pun intended).
I met up with Mike after and enjoyed our final meal in Bagan before taking our final 11-hour bus ride back to Yangon.
What may be surprising to most, including myself, is that Bagan is currently not recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site due to the various architectural liberties taken by the previous military government. In the 1990's they tried to renovate and reconstruct many of the dilapidated temples, but did not take original techniques, materials or even the original architectural styles into consideration when doing the work, much to the dismay of international experts.
UNESCO World Heritage Site or not, this place is absolutely fantastic and a must-do in South East Asia (SEA). I am confident when I say that it outshines Angkor Wat in Cambodia as the most impressive temple site in SEA. The scale, isolation and diversity of temples really make this a truly unique and incredible sight to explore and behold.
The pictures I took were not timed to hide the scores of people exploring or climbing the temples at the same time as I was. I was often the only person (besides Mike) on these ancient structures and that really escalates the wonder of this site compared to the amusement-park type crowds at Angkor Wat. Hell, had I not found that water girl, I may well have died alone of dehydration on that sandy path among those wonderful temples. Not the worst place to die, mind you.
One thing that both Mike and I agreed on was that if you visit Myanmar, visit Bagan last. If you visit it first, all the other Buddhist sites will seem much less impressive. Everything we saw was rather unique and beautiful, but to cap off our stay in Bagan was the best way to do it in our opinion.
I am writing this almost 4 years after having visited this wonderful country and I do not know the extent to which the tourism industry has grown in that time. I truly hope that everyone who visits Bagan is able to experience that wonderful sense of seclusion from our current world and is transported to a mystical time, centuries ago, as I did when we were there.
Once back in Yangon, we checked back into The White House and made our way to Kandawgyi Lake. Although this lake is man-made, it was still a nice refuge from the calamitous 2 weeks we spent running around this incredible country. Mike and I were the only non-lover duo around this lake: it seemed that this was the go-to place for couples to come and be romantic. What was interesting is that any PDAs were done in private, so either covered by a stylish umbrella or covered by a towel.
Now I know Myanmar has had, and still has a very poor human rights record in regards to their various ethnic minorities, especially the Rohingya of Rakhine state. It would be incomplete if I didn't mention it, but I cannot really comment on it because we were not exposed to it and we encountered people from many different minority groups, who seemed to interact rather cordially with each other. We were treated with the utmost respect and hospitality and that is the image of the country and its people that I will leave with and forever cherish.
Myanmar was a country we didn't necessarily plan on visiting upon our arrival to the region, but it definitely was one of the highlights. What it lacked in partying and tourist infrastructure, it more than made up for in culture, kindness and a uniqueness unlike any country we have visited on this trip. I just hope that as it continues to open up to the world around it, it doesn't lose the things that make it a truly special place to experience and explore.
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