Temple Raider part 1 - Bagan cruisin'
Bagan is not similar to Angkor, there are multiple temples and they are both in south-east Asia, but that's where the similarities ends.
While Angkor has beautiful temples to visit, Bagan offers much more of a beautiful overview of the numerous temples. We were told there is currently 2377 temples in the rather small area. Most very small with (almost) nothing inside, but a few larger that could have a huge buddah in side as well. The temples we were able to scale was by far the most interresting.
The bus to Bagan wasn't what I'd call a luxurious trip, but everyone got their seats and we were driven to the destination within the expected time. (think the drive was 20,000 kyats). Had a short stop at a very basic resturant where there was a dog with 5-6 pups who'd probably just opened their eyes running (or tumbling) around. Don't think they ate them there, but who knows?
The engine of the van needed to cool down a few times, so there was a few stops like this. Good for us as well as we could get some colder water and stretch our legs a bit.
In Bagan we quickly met the next door boy who had a small company where he'd drive people around in his car as a kind of taxi service or rent out el-scooters. First night we opted for using him as driver as we really had no clue where the best temple for sunset would be. He did of course know, and after a very short discussing he agreed to drive us to my prefered option rather than the one "everyone" goes to. In short this means it's not cramped up by tourists, and offers almost as good an overview. Our destination only had 3-4 other visitors at the time, but that is of course also due to this being low season. My GoPro messed up and didn't do the timelapse, but I got some with my main camera. If I recall correct we paid 12.000 for the taxi ride and then 5.000 for a full day of renting scooters in case someone who is interrested in that drops by my page. In all the temples in Bagan you need to take off your shoes when entering as these are holy places, and it does make for an extra edge of the adventure. Day 2 we got up early for sunrise at another temple. Annoyingly enough my GoPro only took 10 pics for the timelapse, messing it up again. Starting to be fed up with it. As soon as we came down from the temple we were (of course) attacked by all these highly professional salepersons (mostly kids). They do have some okay stuff, but they will rip you off if you show them an opening, and there is usually nicer stuff in the stores just inside or outside of either Old or new Bagan. You could call Bagan the whole area, while there is old and new Bagan which are some small town centers. After the sunset trip we got our el-scooters on, and started roaming around the area. There's supposedly 2377 stupas/pagodas/monastaries in the area, and they are all in close proximity to each other, so we didn't really need a plan for which we wanted to see.
Key here was that most were more interesting from the outside than the inside. We were however picked up by this friendly guy on his scooter who wanted to show us some things on some pagodas. Of course we knew he was out to sell us somethings, but he did show us some more or less hidden ways to scale some of these temples and get to viewpoints we'd never found by ourselves, so if we see it from another angle we got a great guide and some paintings for a decent price. Cruising around on these scooters was the perfect way to see the sights.
Next day we'd booked A-a from next door to drive us to Mount Popa which is about an hour from Bagan. On our way there we had the obvious stop at a place where they showed us how they made oil, wine, liquor from palmtrees. They did however have some excellent coconut foodstuff which I picked up some to bring back.
Mount Popa itself was mostly a very long climb up numerous stairs where there were more or less official beggars everywhere asking for "official donations" on every ledge or for "commision for cleaning". To be honest it got kind of annoying after the 10th time we were stopped by someone who wanted more to let us continue on upwards. I'd be fine if we'd either had to pay something before going up, or if we'd been warned so we could bring some smaller bills. You kind of would like to help these people, but after a while you run out of cash and you feel bad for just walking past them. This being a place that held monkeys actually meant they were doing a job that was needed so you didn't have to walk barefooted in monkey shit. It was very hot and humid as well, which didn't really make the walk up there more pleasant either. The view from the top was ok, but when we drove to the viewpoint were we could see the temple was really when it became a trip worth taking - and of course we needed to see the temple from the inside to understand what we were looking at. Our driver took us to the airport, and off for Yangon.
