Bagan, Myanmar | Part 1

Last minute, we applied for our Myanmar (Burma) E-Visa’s from a gross room on Khoa San Road in Bangkok, Thailand, and within hours had received necessary permission to enter the country.

Myanmar has only recently been opened for tourism. After a long running civil-war and numerous government turnovers, Myanmar refocused on developing tourism after the military government formally ended in 2011. One evening, we spent an interesting ride in the back of a pick up truck -turned shuttle chatting with a local, expressing his concerns and ideas around the upcoming election. He spoke very quietly when the topic came up, sharing “The Lion Party” is not a fan of tourism and there is about a 50/50 chance that the Lion Party’s candidate will get elected as the president, shutting down tourism for Myanmar and causing a major economic hit to the newly and still developing tourist market. I don’t know if he claims 50/50 because there are only 2 main candidates, or if he has seen some pre-election polling, but he seems uneasy about the potential for a step backwards. Although the least touristic country we’ve experienced, there would still be devastation if communities were no longer able to make a living running guesthouses and restaurants for travellers and locals alike.

We flew from Bangkok to Yangon, the capital city, and decided to immediately hop onto a night bus north to Bagan. We made it to the bus station with plenty of time for a very greasy curry mystery meat and rice dinner, and settled into our seats. As Christmas was approaching, Santa hopped onto the bus to see us off, handing out little keychain gifts as he passed.

We arrived before the sunrise the next morning, with no place booked to rest our heads. We knew the general vicinity we wanted to stay in and roughly how much it should cost to get there from the bus station. Per the universal usual, overly exuberant taxi drivers screamed greetings at us as we disembarked the bus. It’s way too early to deal with shouting men when you’ve barely slept a wink on a rickety, wobbly bus. I always have to remind myself it’s not their fault I haven’t had coffee. My poor-nights rest wasn’t their doing. “BACK THE HELL UP!” is not an appropriate first sentence in anyone’s day. So, I smile, which makes me feel better, and politely say, “No, thank you” to every inquiry of a severely overpriced taxi ride.

Packs on, we found a group of travelers negotiating a taxi ride. 1 couple, Shakira and Tony, had a guesthouse booked, and the other, a Dutch couple, were in our boat, roomless. The 6 of us clambered into the back of a truck to ride towards Shakira and Tony’s place. Surely there would be more rooms in the area. We chatted as we rode in the dark morning sky. It was even too early for Mr. Sun to rub the sleep from his eyes.

Unfortunately, every guesthouse on that block was booked. We parted ways with our smarter friends, who freshened up and were off to see the sunrise, and the four of us homeless folk started a 2-hour walking journey to find a place to stay. Right as tensions were reaching their peak, and sleepy exhaustion was about to burst into an eruption of frustration, something caught my eye. As the sun poked over the horizon, dozens of hot air balloons starting floating overhead, catching the sunrise from their floating baskets. It was breathtaking. I wasn’t expecting to see such a site (I figured I would be snuggled in a bed getting a few refreshing hours of rest before starting my day!), and the view surprised the cranky right out of me. We continued on, and ironically enough, ended up finding a room at a great price at Pan Cherry, the hostel Will originally planned for us to go to. The taxi driver discouraged us from going there initially, so we avoided it. Retrospectively, it’s probably because he would get a kickback delivering us to another spot, which obviously didn’t work out in his favor or ours.

Only 1 room was ready this early in the morning, so we encouraged the Dutch couple to get settled. They were nice enough to let us stash our packs in their new room, so while they slept a bit, we went and grabbed breakfast and coffee. COFFEE. Rich, grainy, instant, uber sugary coffee. It was perfect.

We rented bikes and spent the day bouncing from temple to temple in Old Bagan. The town is studded with thousands of temples, built among the dry, sandy desert terrain. Each Buddhist temple seemed more glorious than the last, housing beautifully carved and painted Buddha’s. The larger temples have ‘sponsors’ who care for the temple and offer guided visits in hopes you’ll purchase some of their homemade handicrafts at the end of their temple tour. Although we didn’t purchase anything, I thoroughly enjoyed hearing an artist explain his sand paintings. Using glue and died sand, he would create beautiful canvases of Buddhist imagery or capture sites from throughout Bagan. I especially loved one colorful scene of animals (“It would be so cute in a kids room.” “We don’t have kids.” “Touché.”) and an image of the bottom of Buddha’s feet. We quickly learned this sand art was posted outside every large temple. Regardless, it was beautiful and quite fun to watch the artists work.

We stopped for lunch somewhere along the way, reloaded on coffee, and chatted with a couple from Canada. The husband had been to Burma years ago, and said he still really enjoyed it. The shaded rest was a nice break from the beating sun’s heat, and after lunch we continued biking around the city, stopping at more temples and chatting with more locals and travelers.

Somewhere along the way, I decided I just NEEDED a photo of us biking around the city. Controlling and clear vision in mind, I was able to capture this great shot (well, I think it's great).

Yep, such an effortless and beautiful photo. It reaks of that "my life is so perfect" Instagram crap. No one ever post REAL life stuff (ever looked at my Instagram?! I've conveniently left the bathrooms and bum-guns... don't worry, more on bum-guns, soon). So, in an effort to be much more transparent, here is what was really going on in the above shot:

We ran into Shakira and Tony again after watching the sunset from the top of a large temple and made a dinner date for that night. We planned to meet at our hotel and bring the Dutch couple with us. We went home, showered, and waited for our new friends to pick us up.

Not having cell phones or a means of real-time communication is hard. Unfortunately, Shakira and Tony didn’t make it to our place, so the remaining 4 of us decided to go next door and eat, keeping our eyes peeled for our friends. We didn’t see them, but enjoyed our meal. I have no clue how anyone successfully executed plans before phones. Think of how often you change plans en route, are running late, or get lost. All of those things must be new with the luxurious ability to manage those nuances with technology. I imagine a lot of waiting around was the old norm.

We got back to our place totally exhausted; we hadn’t slept since getting off the bus well before the sun woke up, and spent the day biking in the heat all over the city. We were greeted with a note on our door from Shakira; they had an issue with their bikes and had been running behind. We literally must have just missed them by the time we left to go next door. We felt horrible that it didn’t work out, and I tried to find Shakira on Facebook to apologize for the mishap and say it had been nice to chat with them, but searching “Shakira” and “UK” didn’t get me anywhere (I was so tired... can you blame me?!). We were both super bummed that we missed our new friends and felt terrible it didn’t work out.

It was Christmas Eve, and we fell asleep without hanging stockings on the mantel with care or leaving cookies for Santa and carrots for Rudolph. We slept well, wished each other a Merry Christmas in the morning, and set off for our second day in Bagan.

Will read about a nice resort that offered day passes for $10 each, which is a good chunk of our daily budget, but obviously a great deal for top-notch amenities. We decided this would be our Christmas gifts to each other, so we packed our bag, grabbed some cheap rum, wandered around trying to find this hidden resort, caused immense confusion at the front desk trying to explain we only wanted to stay for the day ("But why would you want to do that?"), and finally were able to relax, drink our smuggled rum, and bask on the large day beds in the sun to celebrate Christmas.

Although we missed our families and friends back home, we had a wonderful, non-traditional Christmas, our bellies filled with rum and coke instead of eggnog and green curry instead of Christmas cookies. And the view wasn’t too bad, either.

From Bagan,with Love,

Sara + Will