(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 ancient temple to take my first gaze at its 4,000-plus cousins that scatter an open plain less than the size of New York's Manhattan island. I can't stop the "wow"s falling out of my mouth as I take in the view.
Several pagodas tower above the desert surface at up to a hundred metres, with many more are just one or two storeys high, but all of them rise up as if a giant mole from a b-grade horror movie has been doing some serious business underneath the Myingyan plain. It's not a mole though - these pagodas that date to circa 11th century were feverishly built in a relatively short space of time at the instruction of converted kings at this birth of Burmese Buddhism, as it replaced Hinduism in Myanmar to become the now de rigueur religion.
I skip the standard horse-cart option for one of the two days I'm here, opting for a rickety old bicycle to get me around the plain. It barely survives on the pot-holed roads and regularly grinds to a halt in dusty dry ground when I try to push it through the dirt-paths to some of the more out-of-the-way temples. But this approach is worth it - at times it feels as though I'm the first person in a millennia to enter these pagodas, many appearing untouched, still decorated inside with the thousand-year-old wall-paintings depicting famous moments in the life of Buddha.
Later that afternoon my explorations lead me to a roadside café where I order a Star Cola to relax. I get chatting with the owner and his wife and son for just a short while, and as I'm about to leave he out-of-the-blue insists I return after sunset for dinner. It's an invitation I cannot refuse, but first I am guided by another Burmese boy to the place he swears is the best to see the sunset - all he asks is that I look at his paintings when we get there.
You can climb the outside of some of the larger temples for the "best" view, but as these attract the most people, unless your thing is being pestered by children peddling postcards the entire time, I'd recommend only visiting those during the day - a further incentive of this being that they are often totally deserted until an hour before the sun goes down. My new friend and I settle on the second temple he takes me to as there are two many people at his first choice (that's not a misspell, there were two people) and climb the tiny inner stairwell for the view on top. Sitting here as dusk descends across the plain, a bottle of beer in hand and watching the sun disappear behind the mountain range in the distance, I feel like I'm the only person in the world. Well, at least I would have done if he didn't keep asking me to look at his paintings! I end up buying a couple as they are very good depictions, sketched straight from the walls of one of the temples.
Dinner that evening back at the café is an awkward feast. I'm served a selection of what must be close to the entire menu of the restaurant, with chicken, beef, fish and vegetarian dishes covering the table. It takes me a few moments to establish that this is all just for me, and he and his family watch me eat with magnificent smiles on their faces, having had dinner themselves before I arrived. I'm not used to this hospitality and in particular having an audience when eating, and I wonder in a country impoverished as this just how much such glorious generosity will cost him. I had brought with me a wooden chess set as a gift for his son, and feel guilty that this, plus some conversations with his 11-year-old son about him aspiring to be aeronautical engineer is all it cost me.
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