The train ride from Hsi Paw to Mandalay is well regarded as one of the most famous due to the architectural wonder that is the Goteik Viaduct. For a meagre two pounds, we had access to ‘upper class’ seating for the 12 hour journey. Upper class seating consisted of a comfortable, reclining chair and not much else. The train lacked glass on the windows, meaning debris flew in from outside, but all is worth it for the slow drive over the viaduct. When we arrived at Goteik station we were told that the train would wait there for an hour, so we explored the village and had a back to basics lunch. There was little to see here, but a market selling food to locals and tourists alike.

While many of the tourists got off at Goteik and took a taxi to Mandalay, we stayed on all the way. The train zig-zagged to the city, reversing at times, worrying us for a brief second. With the sun setting, more and more insects flew into the carriage, attracted to the lights at the top of the carriage. Some however, preferred to bother me, but eventually we reached Mandalay, our hostel and went to sleep.

*

“Hey, you were in Bagan.” I looked up to see Cat, a Danish girl that had been at the dinner table one evening in Bagan.

“Hey! It’s good to see you again.” I smiled. It’s always nice to see familiar faces when travelling and Mandalay would show many a familiar face while exploring.

“Have you got any plans here?”

“Not really. I think we’re going to rent some scooters and maybe go to a temple, but the weather doesn’t look so promising today. What about you?”

“I’m going to cycle around a bit. You’re welcome to join.”

“Thanks, but we’re going to use the scooters” I was feeling rather lethargic and Mandalay is a sprawling city, so cycling didn’t seem like the best option. “Maybe we could meet at the bridge later for sunset.”

“Sure, I think we’ll get a taxi from here, so let’s meet at reception at five?”

“Excellent, great plan!”

*

In our research, neither Viktoria nor I had found much of interest to do in Mandalay, but wanted to explore at least a little. We rented one scooter and rode out to the Kuthodaw Pagoda, famous for being the world’s largest book. (Yes. You read that correctly. The temple is a book.) Driving through the streets of Mandalay was a crazy experience, reminiscent of driving in India, with many vehicles and lots of horns beeping, but we arrived safely. The sky was grey however: a bad omen.

We took off our shoes and started to explore the pagoda. Surrounding the pagoda were a large number of ‘caves’, each of which contained a marble slab with text. This, is literally the world’s largest book. I didn’t have time to learn Burmese and read the book, so I left the slabs where they stood and carried on exploring the pagoda.

“Very beautiful” said several ladies standing inside, approaching us with the traditional thanaka, a face paint used in Myanmar to protect the skin from the sun and lighten the face. They painted both our faces and we certainly looked wonderful with golden leaves on our cheeks. “Do you want to buy a postcard? Hand made. Very beautiful.” Of course, we couldn’t get our faces painted for nothing. “I want to sell.” We perused the postcards on offer, but didn’t want to spend 5,000 kyat on just one, so we walked away, to see the inner area of the pagoda.

Just as we stepped from under the cover on the pagoda’s roof though, the rain came down. We darted under another cover, avoided some more people trying to sell trinkets and postcards and walked around the rest of the pagoda until we were back with the face painters. One more approached us, selling them at a much more reasonable 1,000 kyat. I succumbed and bought one, but in my defence, it is a very beautiful design. With the rain coming down, we called it a day and returned to the hostel, hoping the skies would clear up by sunset.

*

“The sun sets at 6:30” said the receptionist at the hostel.

“Okay, let’s leave at 5:30. That will give us plenty of time.”

We milled around until then, discussing with Cat what she had been up to since we last saw her in Bagan. While we had gone north to Hsi-Paw, many people travelled east to Kalaw. At exactly 5:30 we got on our scooter and began moving toward the bridge. Unfortunately, something terrible happened as we headed toward our sunset location…the sun set. The thing is, the receptionist had got it wrong. The sun was setting at FIVE – thirty, just as we were leaving. We decided to go the following day instead, allowing ourselves the evening to plan what we would do until then.

*

Having planned to have a lie in and leave around lunchtime, I was disappointed to be awoken at 5:45AM by a gentleman shouting down his phone. I guess that this is part of hostel life. Several people in the room gave him glares, commanding him out of the room. As we were awake, we went to the rooftop for our breakfast, got ready and rented another scooter in order to go to the White Temple of Mandalay.

The journey was long, 100 minutes, travelling south, going over a bridge, then north to the other side. When we arrived, the sun was beaming down on us. Had we not brought suncream, this would have been a very uncomfortable day. We arrived and saw the entire area was filled with shops and stalls selling more attractive gifts for tourists. We explored the stone lions, unfortunately damaged a few years ago in an earthquake, before wondering off the main path and stumbling into a gallery.

“I really like that one” pointing at a painting of a sunset over Lake Inle.

“$60” said the man in the gallery.

“$60?!” I was shocked at just how expensive it was. “I really cannot pay that much.”

“What’s your price?”

“20,000 kyat” I said, the equivalent of $15.

“Ooooh, very low, very low.” He took out a calculator, typed in 35,000 kyat. Already down this much? That’s encouraging. Eventually we agreed on 29,000 kyat, or just under 15 pounds. He even threw in a smaller painting as a ‘gift’, so I was quite pleased.

*

“Oh my God…” In the distance, I saw another familiar face: Fenan, a guy who we’d met in Bagan.

“Hey! What a nice coincidence. How’s it going?” He was just as surprised to see us as we were him.

“Yeah, yeah, good thank you. How long are you here?”

“Oh, just a day” and so on the conversation went. It was a shame. Fenan and I had had a deep conversation going into the night in Bagan and it would have been great to have another chance to exchange words with this man. As is often the way though in travel, one must say goodbyes earlier than wanted.

We got back to our scooter in order to visit the white temple, also known as the Hsinbyume Pagoda. Walking up the stairs, surrounded by this beautiful white stone was lovely, but when we reached the top, it was hard not to squint. The sun was reflecting from the whiteness straight into our eyes. Underfoot, the stone baked our soles, making it difficult to stand in one place for too long, not to mention all the small pebbles digging in. After a few photos, we descended and made a move to get lunch. 

*

We drove for 30 minutes, until we reached a village.

“Food?”

“No” said the man in the restaurant, smiling. We walked up the road, to another restaurant, far emptier than the first, but willing to serve us food.

“Fish?”

“Yes.”

“Please, no fish”

“Yes” I don’t think she understands. I took out google translate on my phone and typed in that I wanted no meat nor any fish. Thank God for Google Translate

“Okay” she said, smiling. Five minutes later, our noodles were brought, along with two plates of fish.

“You want the fish?” I said, passing the plate to Viktoria, me pale just from the thought of eating them. Viktoria on the other hand wolfed them down.

“Picture” said the waitress, with her phone in hand. We must have been the first westerners to visit their restaurant. Almost all the travellers in Mandalay took a boat over the river in some form of organised tour, so we were a special sight.

After our photo session, we travelled toward the U-Bein bridge for sunset. Standing tall, four metres or so above the water, the bridge breaks up the somewhat monotonous nature of the water, providing an exciting centre of activity. As the longest teak bridge in the world, it should perhaps be more famous than it is, but at least I (and you) now have a useful piece of information for any quizzes. Walking up the steps in front of us were four teenage boys, messing around, pretending to push one another off and into the water. Tutting, we walked past, not so hurriedly that we endanger anyone else who had come here for sunset.

Every couple of minutes, we walked through a small hut had been constructed, with seats, salespeople and plenty of cameras. We reached a hut with the smell of crisp potato permeating through the air, stopping us in our tracks. With the light lunch I’d had, I had to open my wallet and get some snacks. As I did, Viktoria began conversing with a a Buddhist monk resting in the hut who had excellent English. I joined them, sharing my food only to discover that he’d been a monk for 14 years, but before that had been a used-car salesman. An incredible change of life, I imagine. We sat with him for 15 minutes, before heading back to the start of the bridge to take some sunset pictures.

*

For our final meal in Mandalay, we followed a recommendation from some other travellers in our hostel. We went to a pizza restaurant only a few minutes from our hostel. But, just as we were about to enter, I heard a familiar voice and of course yet another familiar face from Bagan was here, two in fact: Saida and Lily. Unfortunately, they were leaving and we were arriving, but it was still nice to see them again. We ate some lovely western food, then returned to the hostel, for the next day we were travelling to the beautiful Inle Lake.

*

Thank you for reading my post, I hope you’ve enjoyed it. If you have, please give a like, share or comment 🙂

If you haven’t read part 1, I’d strongly recommend you do that first, because that is how numbers work.

It took about ten minutes for all of us to arrive at the treehouse. By this point, the porters had already begun work on our dinner. The treehouse had three floors. The first, the ground floor, was mainly the kitchen area. Above this, was the largest floor. Approaching the treehouse, one goes up a small staircase to reach a lookout area/shoe depository, turning to the left was the living room, including six deckchairs to look out on to the beautiful mountains. Just past this, there was another, larger lookout area, including benches and a table. The third floor, smaller than the other was a bedroom for three, while a few metres away was a second treehouse to sleep more people.

I took my seat, put my feet up and rested, knowing that for the next few hours I would have to do very little.

“Does anybody want to take a shower?” Everybody looked up at our guide. “The shower is 20 minutes away. A natural waterfall.” To my surprise, everybody wanted to walk another 40 minutes, but with my back still not fully cleared up, I decided not to risk it and stayed behind at the treehouse.

*

When everyone returned, we sat around lazily, awaiting our dinner. This took much longer than I thought it would, but what it meant, was that we were able to watch the sunset together and not miss out on it because we were too busy eating. When we’d finished, our porter revealed a bottle of rice wine that he’d brought for us to all share. Over the next hour or so, we drank several cups of this delicious concoction, until finally, our food was ready.

Spread out before us was another platter of vegetables, chicken, soup and aubergine mix, while each of us got an individual bowl of rice. Hungrily, we all tucked into our dinners, not really aware of where we were spilling the food, as the light had all but disappeared. Much like the day before, the food was delicious and well worth waiting for.

As we continued drinking, playing games and talking, the stars began to reveal themselves to us one by one. Living in the city, one rarely gets to see such amazing skies and slowly I began drifting away from the conversation, staring instead at the constellations above. Nonetheless, the drinking games continued in order to strengthen the bonds between us, until a disagreement arose regarding a rule violation.

“No no. That doesn’t make sense!”

“Yes, but if we do that, we can’t really play the game”

“Yes, but it’s a drinking game. Does it matter?”

Tensions and voices rose, until I chimed in…

“Is that the moon?” I said, staring out at a sliver of red creeping over the horizon.

The discussion immediately ended as we all took in the beauty of what we were seeing. True enough, this red scar growing in the sky was the moon and slowly it turned orange, then white, scaring away the stars and providing enough visibility to see the awe in one another’s faces. Not much was left of the night, as we all headed to bed soon after, fully aware that the next day would include even more trekking.

Shades of red and orange burned through the sky, sliding along the clouds and contrasting heavily with the green on the hills and mountains. Smoke played in my nostrils and I could feel heat all around me. It took me a second to realise in my state of slumber that this was an incredible sunrise, that the porters were cooking again and that my blanket had provided more than enough warmth for me. I was the first of the guests to wake up and headed to a deckchair to appreciate the views and read a little of my book.

After a small breakfast, it was time for us to begin our descent. Considering how difficult the ascent had been, I didn’t think this could be any harder. Again, I grossly underestimated the challenge ahead. The day before, I had taken the choice to wear my own shoes, with a lack of grip and immediately regretted this decision. Ever so slowly, I walked down the hill, appraising each and every option before carefully placing my foot. The ground was very dry and with almost every step dirt, mud and rocks fell away, rolling down the hill. As often as I could I grabbed hold of whichever tree, branch, rock or hand was available and lowered myself down.

“We’re all going to fall over today, so you might as well do it now’ joked Carla.

“I will not fall over!” I said, confidently.

A few minutes later however I lost control of my balance and began to wobble. Something in me stopped a fall, instead I dropped to a squat and was able to say that technically, I had not fallen over.

*

We continued this way for some time, until we took a break by a small brook.

“Is this anybody’s?” I asked, picking up a bamboo stick, ideal for walking with.

“Nope” answered everybody I asked. With great joy, I took the stick and when we were told it was time to go again, I walked ahead confidently, this time using my stick to help navigate through the forest.

Unfortunately for me however, sticks don’t help stop you from misjudging the depth of water. At one crossing of a stream I thought that I’d be able to put my weight on one rock that was only glazed by water. It was far deeper than I’d thought and water crept into my shoe and sock.

“Eurgh.” I let out a scream, enough for anyone to think that I’d fallen in the water completely.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just a bit of water in my shoe. Nothing too bad”

*

At around midday, we reached a clearing. There were three small benches to sit on, propped up by logs weakened by the rain, surely too weak to support us humans.

CRASH

I turned around to see one of the benches broken. Definitely not strong enough to support us humans now. One of the porters went off into the forest, only to return with huge banana tree leaves twice the size of a fully grown adult, which he laid down for us to sit on. As spiders and ants crawled around, our guide brought our food to the ‘table’. This time, the food was simpler, noodles with a nut roast to add a bit of crunch. I must admit, I love this combination of the softness of the noodles and the firmness from the peanuts.

Unfortunately, the end of our meal meant the end of our time together and it was time to say goodbye. Viktoria and I had decided to only do the two day trek. The next day the group went tubing, something which I couldn’t do at the time and Viktoria just didn’t want to. Over the next hour, we were guided through incredibly tall grass by an incredibly small man (the fifteen year old porter) until we reached a ‘village’ comprising four buildings, three cats and more chickens than I could count.

Waiting for us in the village was a man cooking our second lunch over a fire. Yet again, we were treated to delicious homemade food (the best food you can get). When we finished, we were told to jump on the back of their motorbikes as they took us back to Mr. Bike.

*

Of all the transport I’ve been on in my life, of all the journeys and trips, I have never felt closer to danger than on the back of this bike. The road was incredibly bumpy and uneven. At one point, we went vertically up a rock and at another through inches of thick heavy mud. When we finally reached a proper road, I breathed a sigh of relief, but it was only when we reached Mr.Bike’s office were we able to completely exhale. When we got there, Mr.Bike was full of smiles, just as we’d left him.

“I have a gift for you” he said as he pulled out a pair of t-shirts out of a bag. We unfurled them to see the picture we’d had taken at the first village.

“Aww, that’s so sweet. Thank you!”

*

All in all, I must say, this is one of the highlights of my trip so far. Mr.Bike’s hike was challenging, but not too difficult. The view from the treehouse was an excellent reward and the food we ate was of very high quality. Hsi Paw is out of the way for the ‘standard’ trip to Myanmar, but if you have the time, I would certainly try to get there.

*

Thank you for reading! Much like last time, many of these pictures were taken by Viktoria. A huge thank you to you! I hope you’ve enjoyed this post. If you have, please give it a like and a share!

The journey from Bagan to Hsi-Paw was long and for the most part very dull. The salient facts are these:

• We left at midday and rode a tuk tuk to a bus waiting for us outside the city.
• We’d expected an air-conditioned bus as we normally had in Asia. Therefore, we dressed up in trousers and jumpers.
• It was not an air conditioned bus.
• There were four seats per row, with a fold-out seat that could appear in the aisle. These extra seats were all used
• We arrived late, at 01:15 AM.
• Hsi-Paw was a lot colder than Bagan.   

   

We awoke early, still sleepy, unsure whether it was right to go trekking after the horrifically long 14 hour bus journey.

The room was stuffy and poorly ventilated, but at least had comfortable beds. Far easier to sleep on than the bus seats.

We made our way to Mr.Bike’s office in Hsi-Paw, fortunately only a stone’s throw away from the accommodation.

   

“Hello!” The man was all smiles, unlike us suffering from the early start.

“Hi, I’m Tom. We spoke yesterday on Facebook.” Knowing that we’d arrive so late, I’d gathered the necessary information in advance. The one concern that remained was my shoes, which had caused me to slip over in Manali, requiring me to have a tetanus injection and take some antibiotics.

“YES YES!” He looked down at my feet. “Ahh….” I don’t like the sound of that….does he even have any shoes my size? He entered a small room the corner of the office, only to return with a pair of camouflage sneakers, well-worn, holey and probably smelly, but I didn’t dare find that one out. I tried them on, undoing the shoelaces to make sure my feet would fit. I have a bad feeling about this. As I slipped my foot in, I began to feel like Cindarella’s ugly sisters, wanting to slice off my toes to get the shoes to fit.

   

“Do you think these will be okay?” I showed him the soles of the shoes I’d brought with me.

“If it doesn’t rain.” He laughed, patting me on the back. “You’ll be fine.”

   

I put my shoes on and saw a tuk tuk park up with a group of non-Burmese sat in the back: the rest of our tour group. After introducing ourselves, Carla, Maurice, Dori, Lotte, Dong, Viktoria and I were introduced to our guide.

   

“If you have any questions, please ask me!” Smiling, he led us to the tuk tuk as Mr.Bike waved us goodbye, still smiling and laughing (probably at my shoes).

   

As we drove away, the group began to get to know each other. In our midst, we somehow had four Dutch…I don’t think I’ve seen that many Dutch together in my life! During the journey, I told the story of mine and Viktoria’s torrid trip between Yangon and Bagan, Carla about her travelling with her mother (who unfortunately couldn’t join) and Dong who was planning to sleep in his own hammock.

Thirty minutes later and the trek proper began. The day was cloudy, the sun cloaking itself far beyond the clouds, unable to reach us. We were all the more thankful as we began our ascent up a rocky path.

“The first stage of the trek is 45 minutes, then we will stop at a local village.” At this point we had plenty of energy and were all able to discuss our past travels, a perfect start to our experience with Mr.Bike.

As we approached the village, Viktoria saw there were several children waiting to greet us.

   

“HELLO!” they shouted, waving.

“Hello!” I smiled, waiving back toward them.

“Can I have a picture?” Viktoria asked, just as I was about to climb the last few steps before the resting point.

   

“Sure…” SNAP SNAP SNAP and up we went to a small house with a rickety floor. Here, we met our tour porters for the journey, who would be carrying and preparing our food. One, a fifteen year old boy who looked like he’d been on several treks, the other a 31 years old who looked menacing with a knife, but friendly as anything when smiling. Neither could speak English, though.

“If you want water, this is the last place until the end of the day. If you want some rice wine, you can buy it here too” encouraged our porter. Of course we bought some rice wine, while Viktoria got some sweets to share with the children (though not with us).

The rest was welcomed by all, but was over far sooner than anybody wished (though, isn’t that true for all breaks?)

*

For the next hour we walked through more and more greenery, single-file, taking part in more getting to know one another conversations. Only once did I almost slip during that entire time and just as the sun came out we found ourselves sitting at a picnic bench, under a tree, with a river flowing beside us. The porters cooked as we relaxed, took a few photos and smelt the delicious dishes being prepared.

When it arrived, it was a joy. Each of us had a plate of rice, while in the middle of the table we had a choice of aubergine, chilli cucumber, a papaya like food and soup.

It goes without saying, I could have eaten twice what I did, but we had a trek to complete. With the sun well and truly in the sky, some wiser members of group decided to put on some suncream.

   

“Are we going to be in the shade?” I enquired.

“Yes, yes. We’ll be walking under plenty of trees” Taking that to mean exactly the words spoken, I doused myself in insect repellent and forwent the suncream, before following our guide on to the path. Laying across the water was a fallen tree, a smaller one to use as a bannister. One by one, we tentatively made our way over, clutching the smaller branch until we were finally on the other bank of the river ready to begin our 1,000 metre ascent.

   

“You know what the worst part about climbing is?

“…”

“Every time you think that you’re about to reach a flat, the mountain keeps on going.”

   

It was true. On the rare occasion I felt confident enough to look away from my feet, I would glance up and say to myself “oh, we’re almost there.”

   

How wrong I was

   

Sometimes we would, miraculously, reach a clearing, flat and with logs laid out for us to rest on. Above, the trees would provide us with a canopy.

“It’s so tiring” I looked at my fellow climbers, and saw that we were all wearing a layer of sweat, mud splashed on our legs and breathing more heavily than at the start of our adventure. With the increased difficulty, conversation had dried up: talk or walk, but not both at the same time.

No sooner had the sweat dried on our clothes, did our guide tell us “only two more hours to go, but the next break is in 30 minutes. Everyone ready?” We were used to it by this point and got on our not-so-merry way.

   

*

   

“Tom, you’re neck is burning”

“Oh…thanks….I mean, there isn’t a lot I can do about it now! Does it look bad?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty red”

Our guide interrupted “Over there is a village. Can you see it?” Through the trees, on the other side of the mountain were a few small buildings. “Tourists are not allowed there. But don’t worry. Everywhere we’ve been is safe”

I thought back to the morning where we’d seen men walking around with guns. “Just the local army. Nothing to worry about” we were told.

“If you want, I can put some suncream on your neck.”

“Thank you. I really thought the trees would keep us protected.” I said, as Lotte sprayed sun cream on me. It was a very welcome respite from the heat.

   

*

   

“It’s only 45 minutes from here.”

“You said it would be two hours!”

“Yeah, but now look how happy you all are!”

   

He was right. We were ecstatic about the news. We stayed at their resting spot a little longer than the others, as the porters and the guide took out a slingshot to shoot pellets at a bottle.

   

POW

   

The older porter knocked down the bottle, effortlessly lifting, barely trying to aim.

   

“Would any of you like to try?”

“I’d like a go.” I stood up and took the  slingshot in my right hand, the left being used to draw the elastic back. I looked carefully at my new weapon and let go.

   

POW

   

The pellet flew out and instantly made impact with the grass a few metres away from the bottle. I really messed that one up. I tried a few more times, but was unable to hit the bottle. It’s a lot more difficult than it looks.

   

The final 45 minutes were significantly better than the previous few hours. No longer were we walking up, up and up, but now the terrain was varied, Unfortunately, that didn’t make it much easier, just we weren’t being drenched in our own sweat with every step.

“Let’s just stop for a minute. Get our breath.” Carla and Lotte agreed and we stood, wondering just how much further we’d have to walk. We all took a drink of water before walking on.

“Wait…Is that the treehouse?” We’d only walked five or six more steps when we saw through the overgrown grass, a treehouse looking down on us. The last few steps were the easiest we’d had so far and I bounced up the stairs leading to the main floor of our abode for the night.

That’s the end of Part 1. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it. If you have, please leave a comment and share the blog!

Several of these photos were taken by Viktoria. Any photo that looks to be of a higher quality is almost certainly hers. Thank you, Viktoria for the photos and great company!

If you haven’t read part 1 of my trip to Bagan, take a look at that before exploring this post!

After a short nap, I awoke, excited. Today was a special festival day in Myanmar (and the reason why we’d had such difficulties with the buses before). Almost everyone in the hostel had rented an e-bike and together, over a hundred of us travelled down the road until we reached the Somingyi Pagoda. For a couple of hours we watched the sunset over the horizon, the reds and oranges of the sun reflecting on the river below and the clouds above. As it set, many many small white candles were placed around the temple. Eventually, when the night was truly upon us, the candles were lit, locals and travellers mixing together and sharing this moment of tranquility. With the evening drawing on, more and more people left, allowing the peacefulness to set upon us even more.

At one point, when all of the candles were lit, a group gathered in the middle to launch a lantern into the air. The first went up to cheers and applause, while the second looked as if it would be brought back down due to crosswinds. Fortunately, it was able to maintain its own balance and climbed higher to meet its sibling. A couple who had separated from the main group had their own lantern. They asked me to take some pictures for them, but when they launched the lantern it was not as successful as the other two, catching on fire and falling back down to Earth. The man who had sent it up held his head in his hands, distraught.

A quartet of us wanted to see one more temple before going back to the hostel, so back on our bikes we got. A few minutes down the road and we were at a much more local pagoda, with very few westerners. Unfortunately, there were not so many candles, but it was pleasant all the same.

Dinner was simple: pizza and pasta. Despite our differing opinions on preparing Italian food, neither myself nor the Italian were fully content with what was served. With food in my belly and no coca-cola nearby, I went to bed, ready to see more of Bagan the next day.

The next day was incredibly relaxed, until the evening that is. The hostel offered a sunset boat cruise, including drinks and snacks for only a few pounds, so it was an easy decision. We boarded a bus at around 4:30 to take us to the river. Cramped, hot, but filled with happy tourists, the bus ride was a cacophony of excitement. We arrived and boarded the boat.

“First drink is free. The rest are 1,000 kyat each.” With only the first drink being included in the price, I decided to get my money’s worth and made a gin and tonic with more gin than tonic (a bad idea, I know, but I’m on holiday, so that’s my excuse). We sailed out for ten minutes, until we joined with another boat and enjoyed the sunset, taking plenty of pictures, enjoying the drinks on offer and meeting great company.

“I have a riddle for you” said Shazia, one of the tourists on our boat.

“Go on…” I have quite the thing for riddles.

“JASONDJF. Finish the sequence”

“Hmmm….This is a tough one. I’ll need some time”

“Sure…”

As the sun fell away, I pondered the riddle, but was ultimately unable to get the answer (though, I did figure it out the next day and sent Shazia a message while I was on the bus. Good luck, dear reader)

We returned and ate some food, bonded over a few more riddles, before going to sleep to see Bagan’s sunrise the following day.

*

“Tom.” There’s something in the way one can wake up just to their name being whispered. I stirred, still tired, but eager to see one of the most famous sunrises in the whole of Asia.

When planning my trip, watching the sunrise in a hot air balloon over Bagan’s temple was near the top of my list of must-dos, however, when I discovered the high price tag ($330) I soon decided that perhaps it was not so much of a must-do after all.

We rented just one e-bike this time and Viktoria drove us to one of the few temples that can be climbed. Arriving in the dark, with only a touch of light in the horizon, we made use of the few protruding rocks available, ascended and found a ledge to watch from. At this point, there was nobody else around, the only sound being our words. That was until the other tourists arrived…

“Please, please please don’t be coming here…” said Viktoria as we heard their voices emerging from the distance. Their bike came into view, turning toward OUR temple, stopping just next to it. They got off their bikes and climbed, sitting only a few metres from us, disturbing the calm we’d created here.

When the sun began to peek over though, everybody’s mouths shut. Dusting the temples poking out of the trees, the sunlight dispersed to create a most remarkable sight. As we took in the view, to the north we saw a dozen hot air balloons rise into the sky, floating across our eastward gaze, bobbling along silently. Do I regret not taking a balloon ride? Not at all. The view I got from the temple was just as impressive and there will plenty of other places to watch a sunrise.

*

We returned to the hostel, only for me to visit the doctor, yet again, this time to have my stitches removed. Just in time for the next days’ activity: trekking in Hsi Paw.

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