December 28, 2016
Week 92: two days in Bagan: Barefoot kinda days with temple safari
Day one: After breakfast served on the rooftop of the hotel, we waited for the horse cart to arrive at 8 am. And waited. And waited. Patrick walks back to the agency office, when he returns he says the guy didn't find a driver and horse cart and got a refund.
Patrick arranges with the front desk of our hotel to rent an e-bike for the day for 10000 kyat. We also have the ticket for the boat to Mandalay for Thursday. So we finally set out to explore the area, stopping at a restaurant for lunch, seems a nice tradition here of having peanuts served as we wait for our food. After a rest, we set off again to find a good place for the sunset.
Day two: The e-bike was ready for us by 7am pre-arranged by the hotel. Though there are plenty of places renting e-bikes, it's nice to be handed the keys and walk out the front door.
Every horse drawn cart we see makes us happy that this didn't work out yesterday. Zipping around on the e-bike is so much nicer than clopping along on dusty roads in not very comfortable looking wagons. Too much like when we ride our bikes. We are definitely happy to be our own tour guides exploring independently.
What to say about the temples and pagodas. First of all, we learn that a temple is a building you can enter, a pagoda is just a pile of bricks that (sometimes) you can climb on, but cannot enter. Furthermore, Bagan is beautiful seen from a distance like from a vantage point at sunrise or sunset. Up close though, most temples are fairly rough masonry work, covered with a layer of plaster. Where it remains this plaster has some impressive reliefs, but most of it has disappeared.
Bagan was heavily damaged in the 1975 earthquake and the government restoration projects do not attempt to recreate the buildings as they were, instead rebuilding them as fast as possible with any methods available. The argument is that these are living monuments and not a "stand still" point in time. Therefore we see flashing LED lights and cheap fluorescent light fixtures next to ancient Buddhas with the exposed romex wiring stapled right over frescoes.
The tourist dollar is flowing though. We'll let our photos do the talking.
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