Reaching Bagan at around 6am, bright and shiny sky, unlike Yangon, Bagan is the area that never had rain so hot weather is expected, the area is so dry but it is the most beautiful city in Myanmar for me from 3 cities that I visited.
Unexpectedly, we were dropped in the new bus station, the Nyang-U bus station was not the originally showed by Google, within walking distance to our hotel. As normally bus station, people started offering transport but with no information before we were in doubt. There were two options of transport, taxi and horse ride, offered 10,000 kyats for taxi and 7,000 kyats for horse ride. We chose horse ride for sure since it's unusual for 5,000 kyats after negotiation even later felt pity for the horse had to walk on hard road.
We were stopped on the half way there.. Hmm what's going on? Oooo, Bagan applies Zone Fee for all the Archaeological sites, smart 👍. It's15 USD or 15,000 kyats/person, of course we chose to pay in USD again.
This time we booked Amazing Bagan resort through Agoda, after reviewing a lot of hotels, found this one had high rating reviews, offered free bike to travel around and near by Nyang-U old bus station which we thought can walk to from bus station. And I have to agree that this is well recommended. The rate is 60.40 USD = IDR 700,000 including buffet breakfast, much cheaper from Clover City in Yangon... And as the name, it's amazing hotel for us
Being there in the early morning, we thought we won't be able to check in so after washing up we were thinking of leaving our bag to explore Bagan, but surprisingly our room was available within an hour, just before we were about to leave.
Sadly, the internet connection in Myanmar even though can be found free in most of big cultural site, is poor and that's including the hotels we stayed. Because of poor internet reception in the room, we then decided to go down to lobby to search but curiosity to compare made us asked the reception then we got a pretty good deal (as later we found out others got cheaper), a tour to Mt. Popa by taxi for 45,000 kyats.
After taking shower and get changed, we left the hotel at around 8.30am. It's 45 minutes drive to there and we slept along the way, maybe because didn't have good sleep in the bus since it's pretty rough road actually.
We asked to stop somewhere that we can take the pictures before reaching there and the driver showed us the view point, it's not really a good view point as was still on construction, but we found a spot to snap a few.
But we found better spot just one turn from there so we stopped and took another one
We counted 999 steps to reach up there but hey it's a very nice view and it's windy.... Here are a few shots we took.
After around half and hour at the top, not much to see we walked down and please don't hold any mineral water bottle or food, surely the monkey will try to take it, it's too fast so I didn't have time to take a picture on a monkey successfully grabbed the bottle with a little fight from him haha, and the monkey is so smart, opened the bottle with the teeth and drank it.
We saw a lot of dragon fruits sold on the road side on the way up, so we asked the driver to stop to buy some on the way down but it's very expensive if the tourist 1,500 kyats for a small one, since I only requested for red one. But then the driver negotiated for us and got for 500 kyats, bought 4 for our lunch.
Since the weather was super hot and we were a bit tired, we decided to explore Bagan later in the afternoon. From the conversations with the driver we found only 3 big pagodas, I had a bad experience in Siem Reap where I got bored after seeing the same Angkor here and there. So we booked the taxi since it's 6km to take a bike, didn't think it's wise, since the taxi only 20,000 kyats.
The taxi picked us up at 4pm because one of them is famous for sunset and sunrise.
1st stop, Dhammayangyi temple, read that it's the temple built by great grandson of King Anawrahta (1st King of Bagan).
We were greeted by some hanging paper arts (puppets?) in front of the temple, here is zoomed in photo. Not sure the meanings of it. Still a puzzle for me, tried to search in internet after returning to Jakarta and even when I post this, I still have no clue.
Read in the internet that we can climb up but found no way, asked and being told can't as well. So we just went around, apart from a lot of bats found inside the temple, it's not a very impressive one to be named one of the biggest in Bagan. But I am still amazed with the architectures of all temples in Bagan.
Moving to Ananda Phaya, built in 1091 by the son of the King, who became 2nd King. We found it better from outside
The most amazing one is on the top of Shwe San Daw where we spent our sunset and sunrise. For me... WOW is the only word I can say. Pretty stiff steps to go up and it's hottttt on bare feet even though it's 5pm already. Some shots till sunset, and hey.... Got free wifi here so couldn't resist to post a selfie in my Path.
Spent till dark chatting with Puerto Ricon lady that worked for 4 years in Jakarta and fasih berbahasa Indonesia, and with Chillian guy. Seems like my next destination is Latin America. We planned to be back again for sunrise since it was not a good sunset after all
On the way back, interested with few that lighted up like Ananda Phaya but looking at the unhappy face of the driver, we decided to just went back to hotel after stopping in toko kelontong which they named it little-mart in Nyang-U city, found a few restaurants but since can't decided which food yet and afraid the driver is not happy, we decided just go back to hotel then later maybe using bike to go out again.
Reaching hotel changed all plans, tired and exhausted, we then decided to have dinner set from the hotel for 10 USD/person for 4 courses, taste good though.
To explore Bagan, they only allowed bike or electronic bike for tourist instead of motorbike for safety reason, the bike from the hotel is free but the e-bike costa 4 USD for half day (4 hours) and 8 USD for full day (8 hours). He decided to rent half day only from 5am tomorrow morning since our bus to Mandalay is at 1 pm.
I was exhausted but his enthusiasm "forced" me to wake up and go with him, NO REGRET, it was a beautiful ride.
First time on e-bike and surprisingly I can ride yeahhh... I can ride normal bike but not motor bike but this e-bike, I love it, struggled with it for 5 seconds only.
Our first destination was back to Shwe San Daw again, had to wait for quite a while, it's him, has to have perfect angle, perfect light and unusual shot but he is the best photographer for me. All the photos here are his magic.
My friends are always envy with my collections of his shots.
We just rode around old Bagan and new Bagan with our e-bike for the rest of renting time. Another impressive one for us is the Htilo Minlo Temple, named after then King that built it. Read the details after that it's one of the largest, wonder why The driver didn't mention about it.
My reference : http://myanmartravel.org/bagan/htilominlo-temple.html
Ended with the beautiful road back to hotel.
Finished with breakfast at 9 sharp, the buffet was served outdoor... beautiful.
And the food ... Yummm... After tasteless foods in Yangon, it's a relieved. The and prata was outstanding one and even the Moh Hing Kar was the best one for our trip. I highly recommended this hotel, everything were perfect for us.
All were perfect to close our trip in Bagan, had two hours resting time before being picked up at 12.30pm
Next city... Mandalay, we chose this over Inla Lake because we gonna spent 2 nights there. The first plan was to go for 4pm arriving at 10pm bus but because of the curfew they applied from 10 pm - 3am as the result of martial law due to regional conflict between local person (that's was told by the travel) the bus time changed and we chose midday bus instead of arriving there at 4am. The bus to Mandalay was 15 USD/person.
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