Sunset over the Temples

It was so nice to wake yesterday and not have to worry about getting in the car and drive to a new town.

After a leisurely breakfast and start to the day Mr Tin our guide picked Julie and I up for a tour around the Bagan area. We started with a Stupa, while visiting all these temples and stupas I’ve learnt so much about the Buddhist religion and how it is so varied from country to country.

From this stupa we visit the town market, which is the hub of fruit, veg, meat, fish and all sorts of other stuff. The fruit and veg was probably the best quality we have seen in any market this trip. However I struggle with the concept of all the flies on the chicken and fish, I guess you just need to hope it is cooked well enough before we eat it.

The next stop was a temple before going to a local rural village to see how life worked in it. At one house we watched as peanuts are ground for the oil using a wood grinding press with an ox walking in a circle for 1.5 hours to make 2.5 litres of oil.

The visit to the workshop making Bamboo boxes and artefacts from split bamboo before being lacquered with natural lacquer was most interesting. This was very hard to explain in words sorry.

Lunch was at a restaurant overlooking the Irrawaddy too the flood plain with the mountains in the distance. Sort of like the Bagan version of lunch overlooking the ocean.

After a couple more temples we returned to the hotel for a break from the heat and a rest ready for the afternoon trip to sunset over the temples.

The afternoon sunset trip included a even more temples on the way, which I must say has been very interesting in the way that the construction and style varies so much in a 200-year period all worshiping the same thing.

The sunset over the temples is some thing that I think every tourist to Bagan does because every temple with a view had people on it for the sunset which was most enjoyable before returning to the hotel for dinner accompanied by dance and a puppet show.

Just noticed that on my last post Apple auto correct change the name of Bagan to begin sorry.