You can spend days at the ancient site of Bagan and not even begin to scratch the surface of what it has to offer. We stayed 5 full days (fellow travellers we met were shocked by this level of commitment) and visited 50 individual sites on the arid plains that are dotted with thousands of temple remains. And you don't have to be a history buff to feel like you could stay longer; the temple wandering is exciting, fascinating, and fun.

At such an enormous site, it can be a bit tricky to know where to start. There are even 3 main accommodation areas spread out quite widely that you first have to choose from. We decided to stay in Nyuang U as it is known for having lots of reasonably priced options for lodging and food, and it is true that we had some fantastic meals here, although we were still in our "safe mode" of eating and mostly had pizza and pasta. (We also dined 3 times at the "Weather Spoons" pub, hee hee). On our first touring day we decided we would get a tuk tuk into Old Bagan and just "walk around and explore". Ah, the naivety. We flagged down a tuk tuk who instead offered to tour us around for a few hours, and while driving quickly realised that there was no way we would be casually strolling around anywhere in this extreme heat. Bone dry, 45C, just breathing in the air felt a bit fiery. We realised we were either going to have to take a tuk tuk every day, or swallow our apprehension and rent an electric bicycle to get around. This would be a first for us. But if you are going to try an e-bike anywhere for the first time, you probably can't get any better than the pancake flat roads and paths of Bagan. And roads that are quite empty, and seem to be pretty safely travelled by motorists. Our first e-bike journey got off to a rough start. It doesn't help that in order to maintain long-term functioning, you really need to be getting up at the literal crack of dawn every day to do some exploring in "cooler" weather, and so we were a bit mentally sluggish. We ventured off into a sandy path that was a little too sandy for our bike and our non-existent skills struggled mightily to dislodge ourselves from this situation, promptly causing us to miss our planned sunrise. Aaargh what is it with southeast Asia and their promoting of events that involve the entering and leaving of the sun, and what is it with us always falling for it?! We swore up and down that we would ride back to the hotel and abandon the bike permanently, but once home and our bellies properly filled with breakfast, we reluctantly decided we had better try again and stop being babies, and so we managed the next 4 days with the e-bike, and in those 4 days only managed to have one tiny fall off to the side on another sandy path (seriously, they're hard to avoid). Oh, and the e-bike broke down one evening and Clare had to hitch a ride back to town with a local family to get help while Troy was left to try and push his way home. Resilience.

As we said earlier, the exploring is really fun. There are of course several large, well-known sites that are obvious must-sees, but we really enjoyed stopping anywhere that featured nice light, a good view, or an interesting carving, and most of the time we had these places completely to ourselves, which we couldn't believe. It is off-season of course, but even more off-season than we had imagined. The downside to this is that the hot air balloons are not operating, and we did miss having the opportunity to get some of those lovely, famous shots of the balloons floating amongst the temples at those aforementioned famous times of the day that involve the sun. But we think that for us it was a better trade-off because the tourists really are so few. We have seen photos of temples completely over-crowded with people jostling for the best views, and we saw nothing like that during our time. Also, quite recently the rules have been changed so that no one is allowed to climb the temples anymore due to safety and conservation reasons. Seeing the state of the temples, it's hard to imagine you were ever allowed to climb them at all. Many ruins have been structurally affected by numerous earthquakes, and then there is the whole, oh you know, spiritual factor. Kudos to Bagan for cracking down on this! We just loved discovering this place so much, and every day felt like were in an adventure movie, scanning across the wide landscape with the dogs barking at our feet (it's always about the dogs) in the dusty breeze. Yes, it's very dusty. With the occasional small sand storm. Or torrential downpour. You just never know! It's all part of the allure!