eyes turned skyward: Bagan to Mandalay, by cruising on the Ayeyarwady River

The plain of Bagan covers 67 square kilometers and has more than two thousand Buddhist structures. This stretch of land along the Ayeyarwady River has been settled for thousands of years, but it rose to prominece under the rule of Anawhrata. He began the building here in 1044, but most of the structures were built by King Kyansittha, who ruled from 1082-1112. Most of the buildings had been finished by the end of the 13th century. In 1975 there was an earthquake that damaged many of them, and some have been reconstructed. I think that the ruined ones are just as beautiful - they seem so indicative of the bye gone era that they represent.

The temples are beautiful viewed individually, but they are really stunning when viewed from a higher vantage. October through April there is a company that runs hot air balloon trips over them. I really wanted to do that and was disappointed to learn that they were closed for the hot/rainy season.

We all met early Saturday morning to start our tour of Bagan, and we had the option to either bike or ride in a pony cart. I knew I was tired and dehydrated from being sick but I thought I would be fine biking anyway. We set off to the first temple, Shwe San Daw. The biking was definitely more difficult than expected as most of it ended up being in quite deep sandy dirt. We arrived at the temple and climbed 5 stories of very steep stairs up the side to reach the top viewing area.

The view was breathtaking. As far as the eye could see, red stone temples and pagodas thrust their spires through lush green trees, reaching for the blue sky. The gilded spires gleamed in the soft sunlight. Behind these pagoda rose the mountains, providing the perfect background for their ancient elegance. We spent a long time on top, taking pictures and soaking in the view.

We hopped back on our bikes/pony carts and headed off to the next site we would be visiting. When we got there after about 10 minutes of biking I felt so exhausted. I told Joseph that I thought I had overestimated my recovery from being ill and didn't know if I could bike anymore. "No problem," he said! "We can use the pony cart bike rack!" Sure enough, when we finished viewing the temple I jumped into one of the pony carts with Phil and they stuck my bike on the back of it. So nice of them! I knew that I would enjoy the day much more now without worrying about dehydrating myself further or getting ill again. It was actually really fun to be on the pony cart! Our pony's name was Jemma.

We went to 3 more temples in the morning, then to a really delicious vegetarian restaurant for lunch. This was really ideal for Merilyn and myself - we are nervous about eating meat since our illness. After lunch we headed back to the hotel for some much needed rest time!

Later in the afternoon we visited 4 more temples (including one that is rumored to be haunted! We didn't see any ghosts though, just lots of bats) as well as walked through a local village. We ended the afternoon by going to Pyathada Temple for sunset.

Watching the sun set behind the mountains was such an amazing experience. It backlit all of the pagodas and made them look quite ethereal. The temple that we watched from wasn't too crowded, although a big bus full of Asian tourists did pull up right before sunset. They weren't too loud, which we were thankful for - we wanted to enjoy the serenity of the sunset! They were all wearing matching lime green hats and we joked about how we felt gypped by Intrepid - where were OUR hideous matching hats?!

We made our way back to the hotel and wandered to a restaurant down the road for dinner. Half of the group had been to this restaurant the night before, when we'd been sick, and they said it was really good! Amazingly one of their specialities was pizza! Most of us had a pizza and let me tell you, it really hit the spot.

The next morning Mez, Sanjay, Barbara, Eleonore and I woke up really early to go watch sunrise from one of the temples. We got the pony cart from the guest house at 5:15 and trotted off. It was really beautiful to behold. We had to hurry back to our guest house when the sun was up, as we were leaving for our charter boat cruise up the Ayeyarwady River at 7:15.

We took a little bus to the jetty in Nyaung Oo, and were all excited to see our boat waiting for us in the river. As we all got off the bus, we noticed that there were lots of children around. After walking a little way, I turned back and to my surprise, Mez now had an entourage! 5 or 6 little children were walking wiith her, two of the especially little ones holding her hands. It was so sweet! They walked her to the boat and then left, back up the hill home. There are hardly any docks or wharves here, so when getting on or off a boat you have to get creative. Our fantastic boat crew (one of whom sported the most charming Gilligan style hat) had a thick bamboo plank for us to walk across, and they held a bamboo pole for us to use as a railing. It was really fun, much more exciting than some boring convential way. ;)

The boat was two stories, with the upper deck housing the wheelhouse. Behind the wheelhouse was uncovered deck with three chaise lounges on it - hot in the full sun! The deck in front of the wheelhouse had 8 deck chairs set out for us, and it was covered by a big tarp to shelter us from the sun. The deck chairs had big cosy cushions and the view was spectacular!

The lower deck had a big open area that served as dining room/luggage area, and behind that was the engine room, bathroom, and makeshift kitchen. Joseph had told us that the chef was really good and we could look forward to delicious authentic Burma cuisine.

We set off along the river, and spent the morning in wonderful idle repose. We read, napped, talked, wrote, and just soaked up the view and the experience as much as possible. We were the only tourist boat that we saw the entire two days, and it was really great to be part of the local river life. We passed lots of fishing boats, barges shipping teak wood to ports for export, boats carrying local goods to the cities for sale, and interestingly, gold mining boats. The Ayeyarwady has lots of gold in the soil, so these boats were essentially giant panning machines. One end pulled in the river soil, and then the other passed it through a sluice, sifting out the gold. This gold is used mainly in the production of gold leaf.

The day passed lazily. We stirred ourselves for our delicious lunch - the chef was really really good!- then stumbled back up to our deck chairs, reading and napping. Around 3:00 we stopped at a village where they make beautiful clay pots. It was quite hot by this point so we were all happy to get off the boat and walk up a hill into a shady village. We were able to see how the pots are made, and it was really interesting. I wish I could have bought one, but that would have been difficult to convince the airline to let me bring on! The pots were transported to the river by the women, who carried baskets with 6 pots in them on their heads. They were amazing!

Back to the river and it was really hot! Fortunately we had some breezes to cool us down. Our joke about the boat was that it was "fully air conditioned," meaning that it had no windows and was therefore full of air! At around 4:30 we decided it was happy hour time and out came the local beer and potato chips on the upper deck. Delicious! We spent such a nice few hours talking and laughing and telling tall tales. Our group is a great family!

We had dinner around 6:30 - more delicious local food- then the crew docked us at a sand bar for the night! Phil had purchased some local Palm Liquor, so of course we all had to try it. WHEW! To quote my father "That'll put hair on your chest!" It tasted kind of like tequila, but not quite as good. Maybe if you added some lime juice and salt it would be a great cocktail! After this Joseph came walking into the dining room and announced "ok, the Sand Bar is open!" and we all realized that we could get off the boat and walk around the sand bar! It was pitch black out and the sky was just pollinated with the brightest stars.

It was just amazing being on that sand bar! We all stood around talking and talking for hours out there, walking around and staring at the stars. At one point Sanjay and I were trying to identify the constellations (which was pretty hilarious, as we are not oriented to the sky here) and we definitely found Orion and maybe possibly the Big Dipper. Or at least that's what we're telling ourselves! We ended up lying on the sand trying to identify them - not very successful but much less dizzying! I think that we all totally could have slept out there, but then we realized that the crew seemed to be waiting for us, so we hustled (sort of....) back onto the boat.

Then it was up to the upper deck for us, where the crew had prepared sleeping mats and mosquito nets for us. It felt like summer camp, with the 7 of us all lined up in a row! When I first crawled under my net, I thought that it would be impossible for me to sleep at all. It was unbelievably hot and there was absolutely no breeze. Nothing. No air movement at all. I laid there in a state of sweaty half conciousness for what felt like an eternity, and then finally the wind kicked up around 1:00 am and I drifted off to sleep. The sounds of the river were so soothing - frogs croaking and bugs chirping, as well as the occasional splash from a fish jumping. At about 4 I woke to the sound of singing, and was very disoriented for a moment. After listening for a few minutes earlier, I realized that the singing was coming from fishermen that were fishing on the sand bar! Their music acted as a lullaby and I drifted back into sleep. At 5 I woke, and realized that several of the group were up and that the sun was rising. I got up and we sat at the front of the boat and watched the sun peek above the river, casting this glow along the water - it was just shimmering and gleaming with the light. Absolute magic.

We breakfasted about 7:00, then returned to our upper deck. Later in the morning we docked in Sagaing, a town 9 miles down the river from Mandalay. We set off to view some pagodas, and on the way happened upon a Novitiation Ceremony. This was so lucky and really cool to see! We first realized something was going on when we heard a band playing. We looked ahead, and saw that the band was in the back of a truck playing into microphones that were broadcasting to speakers set on the front of the truck! As we passed the band truck (awesome idea!!!!) we saw three Bullock carts. The bulls were adorned in all of these brightly colored ceremonial items, and in each cart were two beautifully dressed girls. In front of the gates of the monastery the parents of the boy who was becoming a monk stood, wearing beautiful ceremonial clothing. They were all having a big party to celebrate their son becoming a monk. It wa amazing to see!

Sagaing is a very holy city, with many monasteries and nunneries. We first went to a monastery where it was time for the boys to queue to get their last meal of the day (they fast in the afternoon and evening). People donate the food for the monks, so we saw the donors leaving the temple and preparing to servce the monks. A young monk rang a gong, and 200 monks came out of the buildings. They were very orderly. First the boys who had been in the monastery were served, and the little boy monks were served last (baby monks!). It was really interesting to watch. We then went to two pagodas and enjoyed some seriously spectacular views!

After this it was back to the boat for lunch and the rest of the trip to Mandalay. We ate and then packed up our gear. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful river cruise, but we were all SO READY for showers and air conditioning. My back was still covered in sand from the sand bar, and I was ready to get it off!

We docked in Mandalay and said goodbye to our wonderful boat crew. A bus was waiting to take us to our hotel, the Silver Star Hotel. We had two hours of rest time and then we would be off to Mandalay Hill to view the sunset.

The cruise was another amazing experience in this wonderful country.

I have done nothing to alter the picture above of sunset, or the one below, of sunrise. This is exactly how it really looked - the most brilliant colors!