We arrived in Bagan in the early hours of Christmas Eve morning, a occurrence that we have become accustomed to in Myanmar. Bagan is a melting pot of cultural diversity, an era of old and new. Temples sculpting the landscape for as far as the eye can see, with a plethora of restaurants offering cuisine that even the choosiest of palettes could endure.
A walk around the market, finished with a few cocktails, an avant garde Christmas tradition we could most certainly get used to.
Christmas Eve dinner consisted of a smorgasbord of countries, each with their own traditions, (some with none) coming together and celebrating with good food, convivial conversation and of course more cocktails.
Our alarms woke us at 5 to ensure plenty of time to perch ourselves atop one of the many temples, In anticipation for a Christmas Day sunrise. The pogues and wizzard played us through our morning preparations. (Which merely consisted of throwing something on and grabbing our Santa hats). With our Christmas crew all ready downstairs we sleepily made our way to old Bagan. Atop the temple the mood was jovial and festive. As we saw the sun rise, through the mist below a hive of hot air balloons rose into view, redefining the landscape. Elegantly sweeping across our view, we stood and admired our surroundings. A perfect start to Christmas Day.
We had a boat tour booked for that day. It was run by a guy called Steve, who turned out to be a right character. The tour itself was nothing to be desired, but the group, and Steve, made it. We played frisbee on the beach, visited a local village, where we were invited into their homes and offered an abundance of corn on the cob, every variety known to man. The day ended with presents (which Steve said fell off Santa's slay with our name on it, c'mon Steve, we all know Santa doesn't need to write the names on the sacks) and a sunset to boot.
Charlie was a little under the weather so Alex, an American couple and myself rented bikes and spent the day exploring some of the 3000 temples old Bagan has to offer and getting lost for the best part of it. With Charlie feeling slightly more human that night we celebrated with good friends, lots of laughter and some tupac rapping.
With previous plans to get to Chin state abolished, out plan b was to try and get in from Bagan. Although a little less direct, we will find ourselves negotiating buses through towns where foreigners are less than the norm. With two new additions to our three, April and Liam, we made our way to the old bus station for the first leg of our trip....