The 10 hour boat journey from Mandalay to Bagan was a little boring compared to the Battambang trip but luckily we had Esben's sister Lærke and her friend Emil to entertain us! We whiled away the hours chatting, reading and drinking beer.

When we finally arrived at the boat dock we had the usual wave of taxi drivers coming to rip us off and as we had no idea how much a taxi should cost we had to just go for it. The hotel was much nicer than our Mandalay choice (thanks to Lærke's choosing) and it was clean, had good air con and a fantastic view from the breakfast terrace over the temples.

As we arrived quite late in the afternoon on Monday we went straight up onto the terrace to watch the sunset before heading into town to have a traditional Burmese chicken curry with multiple vegetable and bean side dishes. It was tasty and cheap but the New Bagan town lacked any atmosphere and was a typical dusty, boring Asian town yet to have much infrastructure for tourists.

The next day we all hired possibly some of the worst mountain bikes in the world, with broken gears and creaking frames, and cycled to some of the more famous temples amongst the 3000+. There was a fair amount of cycling on sand tracks so better bikes would have been appreciated! It was a super hot day and after a yummy vegetarian lunch in Old Bagan we all really struggled through the heat of the afternoon.

By sunset we just made it to one of the tall temples with a viewing platform to see the sun dip below the distant mountains. It was beautiful but the amount of effort to get there on time ploughing our way through sand and running up dangerously steep stairs meant we were all a bit hot and tired. Unfortunately on the journey home Lærke ended up getting a flat tyre so we walked the last 2km in the dark along the main road! That evening we tried another restaurant in town and the food was okay (I am starting to get bored of Asian cuisine), then it was time for an early night!

Tuesday was again extremely warm and Emil decided he would like to take it easy at the hotel (he had been getting up at 6am every morning to go for a very long run!) so Lærke, Esben and I went to visit some lacquerware workshops around the village.

It was too hot to cycle again so we hired some electric bikes which were fantastic as they were faster, easier and not nearly as hot to get around on. It took a bit of getting used to but soon we were zipping around the temples and shops.

We started off the day seeing how lacquerware was made at a large workshop, from the extraction of lacquer sap from the tree to the final beautiful product it was very interesting to see the process. In the workshop there were many people sitting on the floor carving patterns into plates and bowls. Unfortunately once we had browsed the shop we realised that lacquerware is super expensive and some green tumblers I liked were priced at $35 each! So we left empty handed in search of some more reasonably priced souvenirs.

After visiting what felt like 100 lacquerware shops Esben and I came away with a beautiful egg shell vase and I bought some bangles whilst Lærke purchased some beautiful serving bowls. We met up with Emil for lunch at the same restaurant as the day before and then we headed back to the hotel for a quick siesta in the air conditioning whilst it was the hottest part of the day.

About an hour before sunset we set off to see a few of the temples slightly further away and this was when we experienced our second puncture in two days! Luckily, as none of our phones work here, we managed to find a family who owned a street side cafe to call for help and a new bike showed up surprisingly quickly! Thankfully this meant we could make it to the temple for sunset.

After sunset we had dinner in Old Bagan and Esben and I shared a 'flaming chicken' which was a cooked chicken that they set of fire in front of you on the table! The skin was nice and crispy but it was an extremely skinny chicken so the meat was almost non existent! After a few beers we headed back and packed up ready for our flight to Inle Lake the following day.

We are currently in the airport awaiting our flight and Esben has just been off to explain why he was a coiled up pop-up mosquito net in his backpack :-)! The customs officials here are incredibly polite and apologetic compared to the treatment I imagine you would get in Europe!

I will blog again soon.

Alice
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