Bagan More temples than Ankor (but thier Brick)

Leaving Yangon at 016:00 on a sleeper coach berth ticket. Individgeual 4 berth compartment with toilet & it’s own door. This train was not sold out, I had a nice young couple (Aussies) Manageing to world travel 6 months of each year. For company John is a succesful micro-economist, & Georgia a school teacher able to replenish their bank account with 6 months in Austrialia. I got some good notes for some future travel stratigies.

The ride on the train was reminiscient of bucking into a gale on the Berring Sea with a bad cross swell. An 18 hour journey, getting up to rather high speeds. Pretty sure that we avoided derailing only because the track was very straight. We slowed only for stations and turns. Like the old sailor adage, one hand for you, one hand on a handhold. Not the restfull night of sleep while traveling I’d hoped for. But hey only 21,500 MMK ($13).

Of course every daylight stop had plenty of snack vendors, posture & balance. Why include the square structure with lots of smoke? Because it was one of several brick kilms we passed, pertinate to upcoming shots

One village seemed to be the focus of Duck ranching, there were a lot more than what shows here.

Bagan is recognized as the place with more temple/shrines sites than any where. It’s easy to belive. Located on a bend of the Yewaddy wide river, on a wide flood plain. Not a lot of available stone. Hence the brick kilm. Many temples are still in current use. All still considered holy, and so it’s shoes off to enter any compound to be respectful. There is restoration work going on for many sites. Many others still left to slowly crumble. With the semi arid climate this is a relatively slow process. I think all the temples were plastered inside and out, hiding the bricks and alowing for fresco decoration inside. Not much is surviveing, probably not the best recipie of plaster.

The Budda with a small head in the naval chakar Is the only one I’ve ever seen. Also a number of others seemed to have more of a smile, or happy contentment expression than what I’ve seen in other places.

Bagan’s climate, semi arid scrub vegatation, is much kinder to the structures than Cambodias Ankor Wat. In Ankor the jungle trees roots have tumbled the stone into piles. Although a lot of restoration has been done there. Both places were built in roughly the same time period.

Some temples above with the plaster still in place. A better grade of plaster, or more likely replastered in more recent time.

There are spires of large and small temples stretching off into the distance. Without someone doing serious weed wacking mostly inaccessable, I did brave a couple narrow paths to a couple of these, but aside from the brush growing on the walls not different from the easy to get to.

Speaking of easy to get to. You can hire a tuk tuk, even a real cab or a horse cart to get around the sprawling area of temples. But the transport de jour for tourist is by e-scooter. The Goverment, smartly I think, outlawed renting gasoline motorbikes for tourist. I went for the new more powerful & range 8,000 MMK bike. Silent, way more ecological, pretty sure programed to stay under 35mph(I’ll test that tomorrow) Super easy to use, lots of tourque for fast acceleration to join the traffic stream, 8 hours of cruiesing around barley showed on the charge gage. I ask what the range was, on flat ground 70k.

Side note this reinforces my desire/plan to get an e-bike mounted on the back of the Benz this spring 🙂

Notice the temples exist in the midst of the present town of Bagan, and Naungwe U, with vegeatable and hay fields urban housing and shops mixed in

First shot above from my Innwa motel balcony of main street Nuangwe U

I got a peek at the parasol construction missed in Pathien

Getting toward high noon I struck west to find the river and a pleasent bar and boat rental place on the bluff above the river. with a avacodo/bananna smothie under big shade trees I waited out the hot miday sun.

No jettys or docks just pull up to wherever the bank is at the season. Maybe a single plank bamboo frame walkway It would be interesting to see the river at the end of Monsoon, a lot more water no doubt.

I could post about 50 more temple shots, but it’s not so much the individgeual temples but the sheer multitude of them that is so impressive. Maybe if I sprang for the $150 hot air ballon ride I could show the extentant of the site. but budget dose not allow. I bet you could google it

Time to post this one. But I have a request,. Part way thru the day with the phone battery rapidly depleting and thinking of upload time plus the WordPress free version data cap, I turned down the resolution on the camera. Viewing on a phone you probably can’t tell. If your on a desktop/laptop. Maybe. ? Is it glaringly less viewable?

Thanks