Tharabar Gate Bagan

... Zu for 7000 Kyat. When we were leaving (after untangling ourselves from a guy selling figurines and a lady selling laquerware) a young man from the first temple showed up. He was selling books and I had told him that the only one I was interested in was a cookbook that I had seen at the hotel. He brought me the exact same book, brand new, and I bought it for $13 (hotel was selling for $20). We stopped to pick up our laundry and were ...

... rice, mohinga, fried rice and other Chinese dishes. It was ALL good! Plus it was outdoors on the river front. Too bad it has been so hazy and we are not able to have a good sunrise (or sunset either the whole time there). U Kyat is our tour guide for the day. His brother is our driver. Their family own two horse and carts. We went to a 12th century Temple - Dhammayazika Paya which is pentagonal in shape. Most have four entrances instead of five. Four represents the ...

... a p**fect Burmese sky, the quiet *f the small temples we came acr*ss, it all c*mp*unded int* an effect utt**ly peaceful and beautiful. Riding *ur bikes in the p**fect temp**ature *f the late aft**n**n, we alm*st made it all the way t* Old Bagan, even taking in s*me maj*rs such as Ananda Paht*, al*ng the way. The best exp**ience *f temple h*pping that day, which w*uld pr*ve t* be the best exp**ience temple h*pping in all *f Bagan the next day as well, was climbing t* the t*p *f ...

... Yangoon to Bagan. The same amount of time it took us to fly from Los Angeles to Hong Kong. I think distance was only around 500 miles. It was 7am when we arrived but already 80 degrees. April is Burma's cruelest month, with temperatures easily leaping over 100 degrees everyday. The landscape looked similar to Southern California desert areas. Palm dates, and shrubs with mountains in the background. Bagan had the dusty feel of a wild west town. You ...

(to see all the Bagan photos, click here) The red dry-season dust from the plains of central Myanmar gets kicked up by the kilo off the hooves of the horse carts - the only practical way to get around in this part of the country - and can easily get lodged in the back of your throat. But that's not the reason I'm gasping, having just emerged from a short two-storey climb up a set of ancient brick stairs, arriving on the rooftop of this ...

... anyone want to do the same, I'd estimate that the full circuit is 9.6 km. Saw D off from here, last seen bouncing up and down on the side of a trishaw (the Myanmari version of the rickshaw, where two passengers can sit back to back beside the cyclist). She would be bussing down to Yangon, and will be meeting me again in Ngapali Beach, preferring not to go back to Bagan for a second time.

... short and we reached the mooring place of the Amara in Mandalay around noon time. The boat was manoeuvered into the narrow gap and fixed, and after our departure fixed for the rainy season. Business was only to start again in October. The Amara had 2 crews, and one crew would always be on the boat even at shore during summer, because the time to get there was too long in case of a storm ...