This post is a continuation of a previous post:
Yangon Myanmar. (Part 1)
We took a night bus, about 2200hr, out of Yangon to Bagan because the journey is about 8 hours. So we spent the night sleeping on the bus, saving on a night's accommodation. I forgot to mention, the accommodation in Myanmar isn't really cheap. You will know the price when you try to book for the hotel.
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| Interior of the coach |
This is the bus interior. It is not too shabby and quite comfortable. Of course, we can't compare this with the coach that we can take from Singapore to Malaysia. This one has lesser leg space and the chair cannot be inclined for sleeping. This bus belongs to
JJ Express, if you are curious what bus service we took. JJ Express
does not have different pricing for locals and foreigners.
Along the way, there were a few stops for quick toilet breaks and one long stop to get some food. I don't know where exactly we stopped at but there are 2 eating places.
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| Feel Express Restaurant |
One of them is
Feel Express. Feel is a well known in Myanmar for many franchise outlets and their food is rather standardized throughout all the outlets, so you can get similar quality no matter which outlet you go to.
This is the other restaurant but I don't know how to read the Burmese name of the restaurant. The name doesn't really matter because I still decided to eat here instead of Feel Express.
The reason why I ate here is because of the naan they had there.
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| Naan with Milk Curd |
Their way of eating is different from Singapore. They eat naan together with milk curd and some sugar. I definitely prefer this way of eating because it is sweet! It taste really good.
After filling my tummy, I am good to go back to the coach and continue my sleep all the way to Bagan. As I head back to the coach, I was surprised that they were actually issuing snack boxes for the passengers.
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| Snack Box by Feel |
Since when do you get a snack box when you are on a bus ride? So it was a nice gesture by JJ Express. The snack box contain some biscuits, sandwich and dim sum, they were pretty decent snacks.
Day 5
I was woken up around 0400hr when the bus reached Bagan, Nyaung-U. So we alighted and unloaded our luggage. Something caught me off guard again. JJ Express actually had a mini bus waiting for us at the bus terminal! Although the hotel is not far away from the bus terminal, it is really nice of them send us to the hotels at such wee hours. The place that we stayed in was Prince Guest House. It was still very early in the morning, so we checked into our room first to get some quality rest first before heading out.
When morning arrived, we booked a taxi for the whole day just like what we did at Yangon so that we do not need to worry about the transport. First thing that caught my attention when I was in Bagan was the sand painting.
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| Sand Painting |
I find it very intricate. The painting is done using coloured sand. I saw a painter doing his painting, he was doing it like one sand at a time. I would have lost my patience if I were the painter. Salute to these artists. Some information on the sand painting: they are water-proof and does not come off even when you fold it. Also, you can only get sand painting in Bagan, so this is a very good item as a souvenir.
Some story telling about Bagan first before talking about my trip there
Bagan was known to be the founding place for Myanmar. The first kingdom was in Bagan and later unify the regions which constitute the modern Myanmar. It was also the same time that Buddhism flourished in Myanmar, so when we were in Bagan, there is nothing but many many Pagodas. From my understanding, each pagodas has their own story to tell, so if you are interested, you can come here and visit each pagoda and learn about their stories. I am not talking about hundreds of pagodas, it is thousands of them!
Because there are so many pagodas, I only can visit a few. The reason why I chose these few is because they are the more popular ones and some were just random picks. By the way for this section, I only have pictures of the pagodas' exterior. The interior were usually too dark for me to capture any good image since I was using a compact camera for convenience.
First stop was
ShweZigon Pagoda.
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| ShweZigon Pagoda |
This is one of the more popular pagoda because it is grand and there is this pool of water where we can see the reflections of the diamonds at the tip of the pagoda
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| Lawkananda Pagoda |
Next was the Lawkananda Pagoda.
Breaking away from the routine, we visited
U Ba Nyein Lacquerware Workshop.
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| U Ba Nyein Lacquerware Workshop |
The lacquerware is not stranger to me because it is similar to those of Chinese. Their method of production here is still very traditional though.
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| One of their lacquerware |
Next, we headed to the
Bagan Archaeological Museum.
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| Bagan Archarological Museum |
To understand Bagan, this is where you should be going. They tell you everything that you need to know about Bagan. However, I feel this place kind of cheated my money. Foreigners need to pay additional, compared to the locals, to enter the place. After entering, I had to pay camera fee to take pictures. As I was entering the building, the security told me that I am not allowed to bring cameras in. The camera fee only allowed me to take pictures within the compound but not inside the building and I felt cheated having to pay for the camera fee even though it wasn't expensive.
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| Ananda Pagoda |
Up next was
Ananda Pagoda, followed by
Thatbyinnyu Pagoda.
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| Thatbyinnyu Pagoda |
I was told that Ananda Pagoda was the most graceful in terms of artistic decorations and Thatbyinnyu Pagoda was the tallest pagoda.
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| Bu Pagoda |
We went to
Bu Pagoda next before heading to
Shwesandaw Pagoda to watch sunset.
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| Shwesandaw Pagoda |
Shwesandaw Pagoda is one of the few popular sites where people gather to watch sunset. However, it was quite a dangerous task to go up the pagoda because of the steep steps.
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| Steep steps of the Shwesandaw Pagoda |
But it is a risk to take in order to see the sunset I guess.
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| Sunset from Shwesandaw Pagoda |
Sunset would be nicer if there wasn't so much clouds that day. But the sky was pretty that day.
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| Horse Carriage |
I forgot to mention here that horse carriages are available for hire. You can choose to take them instead of taxi like us. Of course it will be a better experience but it comes with higher cost and longer travelling time as well. So you have to decide what is more important to you.
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| View from Shwesandaw Pagoda |
So overall in Bagan, the whole place is filled with pagodas, it might be boring for me after a while, but it is a great site that attracted archaeologists from all over the world. There are chances of finding new pagodas there, and who knows you might be the one who stumbles upon it.
Last but not least, before we rest for the day, we visited the last pagoda,
Htilominlo Pagoda.
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| Htilominlo Pagoda |
After so many pagodas in the day, this pagoda doesn't interest me anymore, but apparently this pagoda has some interesting story to tell regarding King Nantaungmya. You can research (via Google maybe?) it if you are interested.
For dinner, we ate in a restaurant called A Little Bit Of Bagan Restaurant and Bar. I didn't get any picture here because my camera went flat from all the photo taking of pagodas. This place was featured in the Lonely Planet Guide Book. Their food is pretty decent.
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