Begin the Bagan

It’s hard to figure which part of Myanmar I like best.  It’s either Bagan or Inle Lake.  Oh, Shwedagon Pagoda is breathtaking, but in a way it was too gaudy to fully comprehend. 

Bagan has 3,000 pagodas in about 16 square miles – most are brick and not gold.  They were built in the 10-12 centuries, which is pretty hard to comprehend.  There were even more, but a couple of big earthquakes have messed with many of the pagodas.  Some are being fixed up, while others are in good shape.  Apparently there is a programme (Brit spelling there!) for rich people to donate and fix up a pagoda, so that’s helping.

The Bagan pagodas are where Ye Ye and his family grew up until the military government forced them to relocate to New Bagan, a few klicks down the road.  The families in Bagan refused to evacuate, but eventually the military came with guns and gave them till the end of the day to move.  Ah, eminent domain (takings) – the first refuge of government scoundrels.

It’s very moving to walk amongst the pagodas – everywhere you turn, there they are.  It’s like being in Far North Scottsdale and being surrounded by the very cool sarajero cacti.  (Except bigger and man made – but other than those modest differences, EXACTLY like it!).  We walked amongst various pagodas, large and small, short and tall. 

Then we bussed (these were relatively small busses that we traveled on) over to DhammaynGyi pagoda, the largest in Bagan.  Walking around that was pretty amazing – there are four supersized Buddhas, as well as many small Buddhas and guardians.  The expressions of the giant Buddhas would change as you went from further away to closer.  

After leaving there (wiping our filthy feet with wet wipes, which are possibly the number selling product in the country!), we headed to Ye Ye’s secret sunset-watching pagoda, which we climbed up through the narrow staircase.  I successfully kept my head down, without whacking.  Once we reached the main level, we had to scrunch down to walk around the narrow passageway.

The views were fabulous, and the sunset was stunning.  I can’t wait to post photos.   As the sun set behind the low mountains outside of Bagan, we headed back down through the narrow passage, aiming not to whack our heads.  We succeeded, but it meant for slow going.

Bagan may be one of the dustiest places I’ve ever been, but it is also one of the most stunning.

Back on the boat, we showered quickly and headed up to the lounge for a display of traditional music and dance.  The group consisted of one woman (with castanet-like instruments on her hands) and two men – one played a very cool large xylophone (three words perhaps never strung together before) while the other played a guitar-esque instrument.  The “guitar” player also danced, some by himself and some with the woman.  When he danced, I was reminded of Groucho Marx’s very defined movements.  That’s not a knock (I spent many a rainy weekend watching Marx Brothers movies in my youth), but just what I thought of whilst watching him.  It was worth rushing to see the performance.