Myanmar: Bagan

We took a slow boat to get to Bagan the emblematic site of Myanmar covering more than 40km square of temples, pagodas and stupas.
We were looking forward seeing it for ourselves. The site is incredibly beautiful and being at the end of the rainy season the green surroundings were like a perfect frame.
We rented e-scooters to wander around the site as it is quite spread out. Our guesthouse gave us some hints and a good map to not miss any of the biggest temples but we loved riding the roads and stopping whenever we were attracted to one or the other pagoda. The sunset on top of one of the most visited temple was stunning even if we had to share it with hundreds of other visitors (and we were there off season…!). Daniel was brave enough to capture the sunrise from another temple’s roof (while Magali was still asleep). We will not add much here as hopefully the video shows the atmosphere and the settings of this gorgeous area.

We met quite a bunch of nice people on the boat and somehow, we felt like in Uzbekistan, where we were popping into each other again and again while visiting the area. We shared a car for an excursion to Mount Popa with Teddy, Sébastien, Dennis and Nicole, one hour driving distance to Bagan, to visit a complex of monasteries perched on a rock. As a few guide books told, it reminded us of Meteora in Greece that we visited in the Summer of 2015.
We left Bagan and after one overnight stop in Yangon at our dear Check-in @ Downtown hotel, we took a train for the South Eastern part of Myanmar, Mawlamyine.

we did specifically enjoy

• Bagan: the Iza-gaw-na temple, the fine carvings impressed us very much and this may not be the most visited temple but this was our favorite.
• Mandalay-Bagan: descending the Irrawady river was great, the ride is taking about 8 hours departing early morning. A perfect and slow way to reach Bagan! The cruise is inclusive of breakfast and lunch.

accommodations

• Nyaung U: Saw Sein San Guesthouse, a simple guesthouse, our home for 4 nights, located on the main street. The room was a bit small but the location is handy. The staff as usual in Myanmar is great and very nice. They rent e-bicycles, e-scooters for a very low fare (e-scooter 5000 kyats or 4 USD/day).

restaurants

• Nyaung U: Bibo a small restaurant with a mix of thai and burmese food.
• Old Bagan: Shwe something… sorry we lost the name of this one and we were unable to retrieve its trace on Google Map, but this is a tiny vegetarian restaurant on the main square of Old Bagan. The salads, curries and soups are great.