DOWNTIME in NGAPALI BEACH

No words needed.  Quiet, beautiful, brilliant sunsets and starry nights. For just a taste click for the photos…

https://goo.gl/photos/DTUnrkTTyqFaXYbd9

BAGAN

The medieval site of Bagan occupies an area of about 50 sq. km., was reputedly visited by Marco Polo and was considered a major center of study in Asia between the 11th and 13th centuries.  Today the large archaeological area comprises the villages of Old Bagan, New Bagan and the largish town(over 50.000 inhabitants) of Nyaungu, where our boat dropped us.  We’ve opted to stay in New Bagan, where our hotel is at the edge of town, and while old fashioned, very well appointed with spacious rooms and an inviting pool, not to mention an extremely attentive staff.

After the turmoil of the cities, it’s wonderful to be “out in the country”, something that becomes even more of a joy, when we discover that we can rent an e-motorbike to make our own way around the area.  We cut a deal with the savvy Ay Ay, who runs one of the multitude of e-bike rental stands, hers being at the corner just beyond Ruby’s Guest House.  She’s thrilled to have 6 days of rental and we’re excited to head out and about.
 
After breakfast it’s a surprisingly chilly and horribly smoky ride to Old Bagan, the epicenter of the archaelogical site.  The incessant morning smoke is due to all the leaf burning from the continuously shedding dessicated trees. We park our bike and wander the extensive grounds.  There are a couple of large temples, both of which are still in use by locals, and numerous stupas and temples that house Buddhas, but appear to be of lesser importance.  Each temple has its contingent of sand painters, souvenir hawkers and drink stands, along with wandering postcard selling waifs, and often a handful of students who sell George Orwell’s Burmese Days and other English language novels about Burma/Myanmar.  They’ve all got stories about how they need money to go to school, and want to practice their English.  More  amusing is the number of usually young locals who literally come right up to you to take selfies with one or both of us.  To our surprise this often includes monks!  This has happened all over the country, but we still haven’t quite got used to this celebrity status.

I’ve determined that our map is pretty useless, but after driving around a bit, I get a decent sense of where the major sites are.  Outside the main “fenced” archaeological area lies the famed Ananda Temple, which has a  beautiful double corridor running around its central four beautiful standing Buddhas.  The hallways are full of  framed niches for a variety of smaller Buddhas.  It’s early afternoon, so we ride home on our wonderfully silent e-bike, and duck out of the tremendous dust and peak level heat.

Each day we’re up early, several times to look at the sunrise from a nearby temple we’ve discovered where you can sit on the roof with virtually no company.  Not as high as the famed and generally mobbed Shwesandaw Temple, which is one of the only remaining structures that is climbable in Bagan, but just as nice, and infinitely more peaceful.  It’s a good spot to take in the early morning array of hot air balloons that inch across the smoky dawn, and to marvel at the vastness of the area’s pagoda spires which cut through the smoke and early morning mist.  We then return to the hotel for a solid breakfast, getting in as much papaya as we can, and then tooling around the area on our e-bike. 
Plenty to keep us busy for the six days we’re here, and as time goes by, we spend more time just looking at the variety of styles, the landscape of groups of stupas, and enter small villages, spend more time “talking” with different vendors, just to get a little more of a sense of the place.  Outside the Gubyaukgyi Temple, Andres speaks with a woman who is selling lacquerware, and she then offers to have her husband take us around the village and show how it’s made.  She gives him a call, and he arrives on his motorbike in a couple of minutes.  He spends more than an hour taking us around the village, Myin Kabar, where he tells us people have been making lacquerware for generations. 

He shows us everything from the straining of what he calls lacquer juice—which resembles tar—to the phenomenal number of steps in making the bamboo shells that are covered in lacquer, to what the traditional vs. new colors are and the incredibly detailed work of cutting designs.  He also takes us to his home where we meet his mother and “aunty”, his workshop, and the underground drying “cave” built by his grandfather where traditional lacquer spends weeks, and depending on size, up to a year properly drying.  He  explains the difference between traditional lacquer-ware and some of the modern stuff, where color is painted rather than rubbed into the designs.  Most of all though, he shines as a genuine artist, and he is especially proud of his innovations in design, using copper wire and small copper chips.  It’s a wonderful and unexpected treat, and we end up buying some of his work.  I also have him write out his name for us.  Both he and his wife are incredibly gracious and generous with their time, and it’s truly special to see the very subdued pride he takes in his own artistry and that of his village.

The days and the temples do begin to blur, although there are standout constructions, gilded stupas  and some beautiful murals and tiles.  We get into the rhythm of our days, wandering dusty pitted lanes and grounds in the cool smoky mornings, escape from the hot afternoons at the pool, and then  venture out again as the heat begins to taper off.  It’s a pleasant mix and we truly enjoy our mobility.

Our last stop will take us down to the Bay of Bengal, where we look forward to four days of rest and relaxation at famed(in Myanmar) Ngapali Beach.  

Check out the photos by clicking the links.

https://goo.gl/photos/UvjwPd5g1TfbwQS38

https://goo.gl/photos/KDWPLuQMURmbHyX37

BY BOAT TO BAGAN

Feeling rested and significantly healthier, we set off in the dark to the “jetty” for our boat, along with packets of breakfast which the hotel has prepared for us unsolicited.  They’ve been incredibly kind and generous, particularly with the hints of illness we’ve shown during our stay.   A long steep staircase leads from the side of the dark road to the sandy litter-strewn banks of the Ayeryawaddy, as the Burmese call the great Irrawaddy river.  A single plank leads onto the boat, luggage tossed in the lower deck, and we look for seats on the upper deck.  They’re a sort of bamboo lounge chair, and quite comfortable, although the head rest has been made—rather comically, considering the average size of the locals—way too high for one’s neck.  No matter, there’s space to wander during the day and stretch out!  

We’re among the first on the boat, but it fills up steadily with perhaps sixty passengers.  An older Dutch couple who farm in southern France sit behind us, a scholarly Indian gentleman and ex civil servant and his wife sit in front of us, and there’s animated expectation before we leave.  No one checks tickets, identification, luggage, or is in fact even visible until just before we leave, when a couple of people walk back to the kitchen area with bags of tomatoes, onions and other food presumably for the breakfast and lunch we’re told the ticket includes.  Evidently this is the “crew”.  With no preamble, the boat sounds its horn, a handful of characters push us off from the shore, we turn south, and we’re off.

The river is wide and muddy, flows along  the western edge of Mandalay, and while early morning takes us past boats tightly packed with passengers making the early river crossing into the city, the far side of the river is almost entirely agricultural. Plodding oxen and carts are out and about, while herders walk with groups of skinny goats, and people bathe and wash clothes at the river’s edge.

After a big bend in the river we come to Sagaing, the town’s hillside dotted with golden stupas and a great sitting Buddha.  After that, there is less and less activity along the riversides.  There are some fishing boats out on the water, but little else.  Beyond rural villages comprised of a couple of handfuls of bamboo dwellings, sandy shores, frolicking children and more beasts of burden, there is little that catches the eye.  Breakfast in a box is distributed and we sit back and nibble on hard-boiled eggs and some sort of croissant.

The landscape is a parched pancake and looks frighteningly barren, all the more surprising in that water is so readily available.   Occasionally there is a burst of palm trees, or a patch of tropical green, but the further down the river we move, the quieter it is. There is a tea/coffee call mid-morning, so people line up for their cup and begin waking up in earnest.

An occasional barge puffs loudly down the river, but the biggest change in scenery are the growing sand flats along the shores, and the looming sandbanks in the river. The ship’s captain rarely moves straight ahead, but zigzags his way down the river.

By noon, the heat intensifies, despite the breeze created by moving down the river.  People are baking out at the back of the boat, as well as on the small bow, but most are taking cover in the largely shaded chairs.  At this hottest point of the day, a hot lunch of rice, fried noodles meat and some vegetables are served on heaping plates, but we find it far too hot to eat, and nibble on our bananas and tangerines left from our hotel breakfast.

It’s a tranquil passage, nice to just sit back and read and look at the river go by for most of the afternoon.  Another tea break with hot slices of a sort of French toast breaks up the afternoon, but by about 4:30 we catch sight of distant silhouettes of stupas and temples, and suddenly we’re there.
Getting off the boat with our luggage is tricky on the narrow plank with an occasional bamboo pole to hold on to, but from there it’s haggling with taxi drivers up the long sandy beach at Nyuang U.  A half hour ride and we arrive in New Bagan, the town on the northern edge of the greater archaelogical zone.  Ready for the next week, we’re especially happy to be out of the big cities and look forward to exploring the countryside and the thousands of stupas and pagodas in the area.

Click the link for photos of the boat trip.
https://goo.gl/photos/9d6CaHnBSKtLkrTb9