Ah, Bagan. A lovely place with its dusty plains pepper potted with palm trees and positively teeming with red brick pagodas and temples. Despite being one of the areas in Myanmar that sees the most tourism, the town still retains a dusty backwater charm, albeit with a great choice of restaurants, with local farming life going on as it always has. Shepherds herd their cattle in between the pagodas, horses and carts kick up dust storms, fields are ploughed using oxen.

Thankfully hotel development has been restricted to low rise buildings so the town is still charming.

We decided to treat ourselves to a rather nice hotel with a swimming pool so we could explore the temples but retreat and relax during the mid day heat. After arriving on the night bus from Yangon at 5am, our hotel had a room ready for us by 8am. We found a little tea house across the road to have coffee, samosa's and doughnuts, all for 70p whilst we waited.

The first day was spent relaxing by the pool and walking to the nearest pagoda for sunset before heading to 'Weatherspoons' for a burger and beers! The Burmese owner had spent time working at a Weatherspoons in the UK and has brought the name back with him. It offered a nicer ambience than the chain back home does!

The second day we woke at 5.30am to head out on our 'e-bikes' for sunrise. You turn the key on the bike and twist the handlebar and away you go, reaching speeds up to 25mph with no need to even peddle. What lazy sods we have become. The temperatures hover around 32degrees during the day but are rather cold in a morning, and even when wearing a fleece, the wind as we cycled along chilled us. The ride gave us our first proper glimpse of the pretty spectacular pagodas even though it was still rather dark. We headed several kilometres out of town to Shwesandaw Pagoda, a large structure with steep steps on the outside leading to three terraces from where we could look out over the plains and take in the vista which until then, we had only seen in photos.

Mist rose from the ground, hundreds of other pagodas could been seen in every direction and after twenty minutes or so, dozens of hot air balloons were spotted rising into the sky which was just turning orange as the perfect sphere of the sun was spotted rising from the plain. It was quite a beautiful sight to behold.

We cycled back for breakfast and then headed out again to explore more of the sights. Many of the bigger pagodas which have several terraces, have since 2012, been locked off for preservation reasons meaning that whilst you can walk around the outside and examine the craftsmanship, you can't climb the steps to get a birds eye view of the surrounding area.

Some however remain open and it was to one of these, down very sandy dirt tracks where the bike kept slipping from beneath us, that we headed for sunset on our second day. Pyathada Pagoda was built with a huge terrace which although busy, wasn't packed to the gills like some sunset spots in Angkor. We would have liked to stay around after the sun had dipped behind the hills but as it was a long cycle back along dirt roads with no light, we had to head off. We treated ourselves to a very cheesy lasagne and tiramisu at the local Italian. A glass of red would have perfectly complemented the meal but the price for us backpackers was way beyond the budget.

The next morning, our third and final day, we didn't get up for sunrise but had an early breakfast and headed out on the bikes at 8.30am. Our first pagoda of the day, Dhammayangyi Paya, was cavernous and the internal quite different to those of the previous day. It was more akin to a huge cathedral with brick archways and we spent quite a bit of time here, in part talking to a father and daughter who were interested in our travels and with them spending £10,000 on a two week holiday, were quite interested how we could be doing eight months on less than three times that amount.

We then headed to a few more beautiful pagodas, most allowing access to the terraces, and which were devoid of other tourists so we had the place to ourselves, at least for a short period of time. A very pleasant surprise.

Our return cycle was a challenge. The mid day sun was beating down and as we were off the beaten track, had no idea where we were and had to slog through deep sand trying to find some semblance of a road to take us home, more often than not, dragging the bikes as we couldn't power through the sand.

We recuperated with lunch and an afternoon by the pool. Still fatigued from the morning cycle, I declined the offer of a sunset cycle but now regret it. Tony didn't venture far but found a pagoda that allowed access to the external terraces, where no one else was around, and where he could enjoy the sunset in absolute tranquility. I'm rather jealous.

Never mind, I'd used the time he was out productively and spent forty five minutes accessing internet banking. Wifi isn't great!

We're now en route to Kalaw to hopefully arrange a two day trek to Inle Lake, starting tomorrow. We have no accommodation or trek arranged but hopefully we'll get it sorted.