Day 221 - The Train to Mandalay

Having a train station further away from the town than the airport is certainly one of the more 'unique' aspects of Bagan so it meant an early start to get there on time for the 7:30 train to Mandalay.

People at the station and in the train were quite excited to have a foreigner take this train as most just take the bus to Inle Lake or the boat or fly. As always it was a nice experience and nice to be around locals travelling.

Despite it being a short distance, the train takes forever to get to Mandalay but you can easily see why. The tracks are even worse than in England, at times it's so bumpy and shaky that you expect the train to fall on it's side or jump out of the tracks.

The views are not as nice here as on some other routes or the boat but you still get to see enough of the landscape and villages you pass through.

Despite the train being slow and bumpy, it's very relaxing to take it and just sit by the open window and watch the villages and landscape go by.

The train arrived in Mandalay just after lunch and at first I planned to go around take some more photos but decided to just take it easy instead. The evening was spent celebrating a friend's birthday.

Tomorrow late afternoon/evening, I will either take the train or bus to Inle Lake.

Day 220 - More Temples in Bagan

After walking around to most places yesterday, I decided to rent a bicycle today. Being cheap, I took one without gears so it was not quite as easy or comfortable to get along the dusty roads and I missed having a motorbike or at least better bicycle for this.

Still, having a bicycle meant I could go to some of the temples that were a bit further away to walk and go back to some of the temples I wanted to see again.

It's funny how you can go to lots of temples but as soon as you look around from above you realize that you have hardly seen anything from all the temples around you.

Initially I planned to go to a different temple for the sunset but after seeing clouds in the sky, I decided to save the trip and enjoy a cool beer instead.

The evening was spent having dinner with a nice lady I met at one of the temples selling lacquer ware, I gave her some of my old t-shirts for her son so she invited me for dinner. This was very nice and also very interesting as I like spending time with the locals and appreciate she invited me although I insisted to pay.

Tomorrow will be an early start to take the train back to Mandalay.

Day 219 - People and Temples in Bagan

I just ain't really the sunrise photographer as I didn't manage to get myself out of bed in time yet again. On the other hand it meant I had enough energy to walk to the temples rather than rent a bike.

As with so many other places I have been to, I was not sure quite what to expect other than temples, lots of them.

And there were indeed a lot of temples everywhere I looked once I got out of the town but even in town there were some smaller temples and ruins of temples. It reminded me somewhat of Ayuthaya or Sukhothai just bigger.

There are over 2,000 temples in and around Bagan so one could spend months trying to see all of them but since I was walking, I could only see a more limited number. The good thing about walking is that I didn't try to rush and see as many as possible but took my time at each of the temples I did go to.

There are a lot of temples that look similar, a lot of small temples and some that are just ruins but the bigger temples are all quite different from each other and worth seeing.

One thing that quickly became very annoying was to have to take my shoes off to enter each temple even if it was just ruins. It is here even more strict than in the rest of Asia where you can enter the temple with shoes and only take them off where people pray.

Still, it was great to walk around and see all the temples and it was almost as impressive as seeing Angkor Wat the first time, despite being to Ayutthaya and Sukhothai before and having seen a fair share of similar temples in Thailand.

I managed to find the most touristy an visited spot  possible for the sunset and as usual (when I make the effort to see it) the sunset was nothing too special.
The walk back to the hotel in the dark was also not so much fun but I stopped for a beer on the way so this helped me to continue.

Tomorrow I will rent a bike though.