Back to the Baganing

(I know the blog is jumping around a bit now -- no longer linear, but if you've read past trips, you know that's inevitable for me.)

After leaving Ye Ye's house/mom's lacquer ware factory, went to lunch at the Teak House and headed back to the boat for some down time.  After that, six of the ten of us headed back to visit more pagodas in Old Bagan (with 3,000 pagodas, it's not like we were going to see them all!).

Although it was our third time visiting the Bagan pagodas, it's still a mystical feeling to see these all. I already posted pictures -- (the post is entitled "Do You Believe In Magic?").  We walked amongst the pagodas, awed by the spectacle, and, of course, taking pictures from the best angles in the sun.

Just so there is no confusion, these pagodas are from the 11th-13th centuries.  Mind blown.  And, although very, very few are the ostentatious gold plated ones we saw in Yangon and a few other stops, the simple brick made them, in their own way, more impressive.

After wandering amongst the pagodas for a while, we headed back to the bus.  On the way back, Kevin and I were engaged by a young boy who asked where we were from.  He showed us all the money he had from other countries, and claimed to have no American dollars.  So I gave him one, which prompted two things immediately:

1.    My realization that he probably had two collections on him -- if I were British, he'd pull out the one without an Euros, but with an American dollar.

2.    It only encouraged the other boys to set up me for money.  I strode past them quickly.  They did not swarm me in a threatening way, and their manner was politely aggressive rather than rudely aggressive.

We went to Clay Pot Hill to watch the sunset.  It's named Clay Pot Hill because, as Carol alertly noticed, there are shards of clay pots scattered around the ground.  Whether this is the result of the earthquakes, or just a place where Myanmariacs come to smash clay pots for fun and entertainment, I don't know.

Anyhow, we joined a bunch of other people to watch the sun go down, which of course made for some great pictures.