Middle-aged flash packers

Our flight to Bagan had us up very early and on arrival our rooms weren’t ready so we toddled off to the Shwezigon Pagoda, just 5 minutes walk away. It was very busy and to be honest it didn’t really float my boat. I’m a bit of a philistine saying this as it’s a very important temple here, not least because it holds one of Buddha’s collarbones and a tooth. Apparently.

I think we all felt tired so the rest of the day was spent snoozing and generally lazing about.

Steve and I went to Sharkey’s, a very hipster restaurant just a short wander away. Hipster doesn’t come cheap by Myanmar standards but the gin and tonics were amazing so I’m not complaining. The cheese we had on our burgers (yes burgers – rice and noodles do get dull after a while) was delicious. Soft, creamy with a slight blue cheese flavour.

Revived by a night’s sleep, Steve and I were very virtuous and did a short workout in the hotel gym then met Nik and Jan for a discussion re our temple and stupa itinerary.

There are over 2000 here and deciding which ones to see is completely mind boggling. I gave up even trying to make sense of it, but luckily Steve and Jan had persevered. Interestingly, they hadn’t collaborated but their proposed itineraries were almost identical.

And so to bikes. We decided to forgo the e-bikes (Jan and Nik are going to give them a go tomorrow) and went for bicycles again instead. Nik was feeling butch today as he was sporting his tattoo “sleeves” (don’t ask) so Jan had the lady bike. I was a boy again.

The traffic was much heavier than at Inle but again everyone beeps so it wasn’t too scary.

Today and tomorrow are special days in Myanmar as it is the end of the festival of light. In Bagan, on the day/night of the full moon (tomorrow) hundreds of monks come to Shwezigon pagoda and are given food offerings.

We wound our way around various temples and stupas. Our timing for staying in Bagan couldn’t have been better as all the locals were out in force and the ladies were done up to the nines. Longyis and tight matching tops were the order of the day for many, others had created a group look by all wearing the same tops and flowing skirt-trouser things that seem very popular here.

Nik and Steve had their own admirers with Nik having to pose with two very pretty young ladies who were very taken with his tattoo sleeves and Steve being told he was handsome -again. Jan and I trailed dutifully after our wonderful husbands, happy and grateful that we had such splendid examples of maleness.

Lunchtime saw us eating at a temple that had a painted gourd on it at some point but got rebuilt with something else after an earthquake. You can tell I’m really taking it all in can’t you?! Read a guide book if you want any more information. I like the stupas etc but I have no idea which one is which apart from the Hindu one and that’s only because a very persistent lady “guide” attached herself to us and then made us spend lots of money in her shop.

Anyway, lunch was an eggplant curry with vegetable side dishes. I have been mentally scarred by the food poisoning/virus we had in Mandalay and have become extremely suspicious of anything that hasn’t been cooked in a sterile environment. The eggplant curry arrived cold, as was everything else apart from the rice which was slightly off cold. Oh well. We had cold potatoes in turmeric (nice), pickled lemon (bitter) and some kind of weird pickled cucumber. (Yuk) Apparently the tomato salad was nice but I avoided it because I’m paranoid about what it was washed in. Actually we all appear to be fine so I need to chill out a bit.

After a few more visits to various stupas/temples we all became desperate for a cool down and a swim so we pedalled back to our hotel. What a joy it was to quickly shower and then splosh into a lovely cold swimming pool.

However there are always chores to be done and soon it was time to take our clothes to the laundry up the road. ( it’s not all one long holiday you know)

Utter mayhem. Everyone was on the road, in a restaurant or parked up in their pick up truck – presumably where they would sleep. It was not pleasant and I had a feeling that as the night progressed, it wouldn’t get any better, so we decided to eat in the hotel.

Not sure what tomorrow will bring other than possibly lots of monks in search of food.

I will let you know.