Exploring Bagan Temples in one day is possible – on a motorbike. Yep, you can rent a motorbike and go at your own pace! However, I’d still advise you to ask for a map from the hotel/hostel receptionist.
And don’t just ride unprepared. The weather in Bagan is scorching hot all year, except on monsoon mornings. Pack an extra t-shirt or sweatshirt and bring water or food. And oh, the road is dusty so you better have a pair of sunglasses.
This post is the last of the 22 temples you can explore in Bagan in one day. So, let’s continue with our little adventure in Bagan!
Bagan Temples: Yinmana
Yinmana is an interesting complex of well-tended temples. Despite its wondrous beauty, the temples are off-the-beaten-track. There were only two of us there at the time of our visit. If you notice in the picture below, each temple has a different style and they’re interesting to see if you observe them from afar. The downside is that nowhere we could find descriptions of the pagoda’s history.
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Dreamy and surreal, we drift in a hot air balloon over the fabled Plains of Bagan where, as far as the eye can see, golden temples and stupas jut skyward, and, in the dawn light, we see the molten sun creep above the distant violet-hued mountains. Floating over a cluster of brick pagodas bordering a field, I turn around in the wicker gondola and below us appears the impressive Dhammayangyi Temple where dozens of early risers enthusiastically wave and point cameras at us as we languidly drift past.
Nearing the ruined walls of Old Bagan, a flock of birds flies below, a shifting breeze nudges us onward. To the West, the broad curve of the Irrawaddy River wends down from the mountains of Kachin State on the China border to the Andaman Sea. Before we gently land near a schoolyard between the trees at the river’s edge, I briefly glimpse the white-and-red-trimmed Belmond Orcaella, the five-star riverboat that will soon become home base after having traveled in Burma for ten days on our own.
Two hours later, my traveling companion, Peter, and I board the Belmond Orcaella where we’re offered cool minty drinks and the staff genially welcomes us for our weeklong cruise through Burma–an exotic country seemingly preserved in time. Now that international sanctions have been lifted, tourism is booming; well over two million visitors arrived in 2014, compared to about 800,000 in 2010. Catering to well-heeled and adventurous travelers, the recently launched Belmond Orcaella (Orient-Express re-branded as Belmond), named after an endangered river dolphin, rises up three decks, is 200 feet long and 40 feet wide, with a shallow four-foot draft enabling it to pass unencumbered over shoals in the dry months.
Rich in history, culture, and tradition, in Myanmar (formerly Burma), a bygone Asia still endures. In fact, it must be among the few countries in the world still beyond the clutches of McDonalds, Coca-Cola, and ATM machines. But modernity is rapidly encroaching, and ever since the military regime began shifting power to civilian leaders in 2011, business people, diplomats, and eager tourists are flocking to the country with Yangon (formerly Rangoon) poised to become Southeast Asia’s next boomtown.
YANGON
Dawn stirs like a sepia-toned fantasy with motes of sunlight streaming through the plantation shutters onto the teak floors, as a chorus of birdsong come from the lavender jacaranda and flaming coral trees. Here, the morning unfolds at a measured, languid pace suited to the tropical climate. Under the twirling ceiling fans on the grand veranda dining room of the restored 1902 mansion, now the Belmond Governor’s Residence, one half expects to glance up from the morning paper and spot the likes of Somerset Maugham or Rudyard Kipling taking tea, or if it’s closer to the cocktail hour, perhaps a shot of Mandalay Rum.
Golden pagodas, colonial-era buildings, traditional shop houses and moldering jazz-age mansions form a low-rise fabric unique to Asia, the whole stitched together by tree-lined avenues swarming with buses and cars. On Yangon’s bustling riverfront boulevard, Strand Road, stately buildings like the Customs House, the Central Post Office, and the British Embassy bear witness to the city’s turn-of-the-century status as one of the British Empire’s key commercial hubs. A haven of tranquility, the Strand Hotel, among Yangon’s best-preserved colonial edifices, has cosseted globetrotters almost continuously since the Armenian Sarkies Brothers, owners of the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, opened it in 1901.