Myanmar: Temples in Bagan

Myanmar (Burma as the US calls it) was never a place we thought we would visit and up until a few years ago, no one really could.   After decades of isolation, Myanmar opened up its borders and began encouraging tourism.  Everyone told us that the sooner we go, the more genuine the experience would be as it hasn't become a complete tourist trap yet.  I will say that it was a very different trip for us and I took a lot of photos so I've chosen to break it up into three posts.

We arrived in Yangon late Friday night and were whisked away to our hotel to get 2.5 hours of sleep before heading back to the airport to catch our flight to Bagan.  The airport was a new experience in itself.  There were no computers at the counter or electronic scales.  They did it the old-fashioned way: checked if our name was written on the list for the flight, hand wrote and stamped the ticket, used a manual scale, and moved the bags from counter to plane by hand.  They did have a metal detector but that was the only electronic thing in the place.  Once entering the waiting area, we sat looking for someone to walk around with a signboard announcing that our flight was ready to board.  This all called into question the quality of the airline we would be flying but the plane was in great shape and the flight was actually very pleasant.

When we arrived, our guide and a driver picked us up to begin our two day tour of Bagan.  Bagan is an ancient capital city of the Kingdom of Pagan that is known for its more than 2,200 temples and pagodas.  Everywhere we looked it seemed like you could see a dozen or more temples.  It was really unbelievable.  We spent the day touring and climbing ten temples, took a horse cart ride, and enjoyed the sunset.

A young monk carrying his ahm bowl.  He is probably about 8 years old.

16 weeks pregnant!

They don't have a lot of heavy machinery and still use oxcarts

Most of the temples did not have electricity so we walked the hallways in the dark

My favorite gate that I saw blocking one of the entrances to the temple

Three modes of transportation: horse cart, motorbike, and everyone piling in the car.  The van was full of locals doing there own tour of the temples.

When we went on the horse cart ride, much like these people, the children would run up and grab onto your cart while trying to sell their self drawn postcards.

Local children pushing a barrel of water to their home.

Atop the Sunset Temple waiting for the sun to go down.  

Just before sunset.  It was starting to get crowded and the clouds were blocking the sun so we left early.

We called it an early night after only getting a few hours the night before and having to wake up early the next morning to watch the monks go out for the ahm food.  More to come!