We left Mandalay early in the morning, before sunrise, on a small modern boat, for a 10 hour ride down the Irrawaddy River. Shortly after departing the sun rose over the river in a brilliant display of colors, mostly from dust, smoke and other pollution in the air, but none the less beautiful. The river is very shallow and wide. In many places the navigable channel has room for only one boat at a time and the traffic must take turns passing through. There are little boats flying white flags that are continuously measuring the depth of the water and signaling to the larger boats where to steer. It’s the dry season, now, so the nautical traffic must be much more cautious. Everything works well and we arrive in Bagan right on time. But, before we can head to our next hotel, we have to “walk the plank” to get off the boat. Because of the shallow water, the boat had to dock way far away from the shore. They rigged up a vary narrow plank walkway from the boat to the land that everyone had to walk down (check out the picture in the photo gallery). There were young boys offering to carry off our suitcases for the equivalent of $1.50 each, twice the normal rate. But, we are HAPPY to pay this time. 😉
Carol found us a really nice hotel here. It’s composed of a bunch of four-room bungalows spread throughout a flowery park like setting on the banks of the river. It has a very good restaurant, overlooking the river, where we watched the sun set every night at 6:00 PM. It’s a wonderful place from which to explore the over 2000 Temples, Pagodas, Monasteries and Stupas that this area is famous for. Many of them date back to the 9th century.
The best way to explore them is by electric scooter, which we can rent at the hotel for $10 per day, a bargain. These scooters allow you to drive off the roads, onto dirt paths that wind around the thousands of buildings, from huge Temples to tiny Stupas. No taxis to worry about, just hop onto the scooter and off you go. Well, I was never very experienced at scooter driving, especially carrying another adult passenger. But, how hard can it be? Hummm…… Those paths I mentioned were dirt, dry sandy dirt, and sometimes the dirt was very deep. After a few close calls, we figured out that you are supposed to drive around that deep dirt, not through it. The electric drive was very forgiving, though, and everything worked out great. They even gave us helmets, though no one except the tourists wore them.
Most of the Temples were damaged by earthquakes over the many years, but many of the largest ones have been restored in some way or another. The most recent earthquake happened this past August (2016), damaging some Temples enough to close them to visitors. As is normal here in Myanmar, you must visit these historical sites barefooted. Previously, as I wrote earlier, we were visiting current “working” Temples and the foot paths were in good condition, making the walking not too difficult. However, these temple “ruins” were in various states of decay, and barefooted walking was a bit more precarious. We didn’t let that stop us, however, but it did slow us down a bit. Some places actually had felt carpets over the rough parts.
This area is also famous for its lacquer-works. Round pieces are made of spiraled slivers of bamboo and square pieces from teak. The process is very complicated and labor intensive, with up to 14 layers of construction and lacquering, depending on the piece. Then they are inscribed with intricate artwork in one, two or three colors. The high quality lacquerware is very expensive, but cheap phony copies abound at tourist stands. It’s hard to know how good the work is. So, we read about The Jasmine Lacquer-Works, which had a good reputation and decided to go there. We only knew which little town it was in, but not its exact location. We were told to go there and just ask someone where it was. Simple enough, so we hopped onto the electric scooter and off we went. When we got there we asked the first person we saw for directions. But, he only wanted to get on his motorbike and lead us there. We eventually concluded that he really wanted to take us to a different commercial lacquer store, where he would get a handsome commission on anything we bought (adding to our price). This was a common practice. So, we moved on and asked someone else….. with the same result. Pretty soon the word got around and there were motorbikes coming from all directions wanting to take us to “Jasmine Lacquer-Works”, yea, right.
We just kept driving around the little town and looking. Finally, a guy named Win, the owner of Jasmine stopped us (he presented the proper credentials) and said that someone in the town called him and said there were two Americans, with red helmets, riding around on a scooter looking for him. He got on his motorbike and came out to find us. His lacquer factory was very interesting. He spent about an hour showing us all the steps it took to make quality product and let us watch his workers (mostly relatives, including his parents) making the stuff. It takes days or even weeks to finish some of the intricate designs. Their tools are somewhat crude and they apply the final coats of lacquer in a sealed room (to keep contamination down) with their fingers.
As I write this, relaxing on the porch of our hotel in the late afternoon, with a nice, dry 85 degree breeze blowing by, Carol notified me of a news flash she just got, that Seattle is supposed to get three to six inches of snow over night, threatening to disrupt the morning commute. Gosh, and we’re missing it!
That’s about it for Bagan. Our last stop on this trip is Yaung Shwe, at the top of Lake Inle. It’s a 9 hour bus ride over the mountains from here. More about that later.
Be sure to check out the photos and Carol’s new blogs below. The internet was working here so we were able to post some pix and a small video.
Carol’s blog at: http://www.travel.carolpucci.com
Later…… your favorite travelers, Tom and Carol
Bagan Photos
Click to Enlarge and Read Caption
