We’d originally only planned to spend a single night here in Bagan before moving onto Mandalay but after our first hot & dusty day exploring the temples we decided to stay on just a little longer in this magical place.
Bagan is an ancient city built sometime prior to the 9th century and was the capital the Pagan Kingdom. For lack of anything better to do with their time these ancient peoples constructed over 10,000 temples, stupas and monasteries – of which over 2000 of these still remain today.
Renting ourselves some e-cycles we spent our days slipping and sliding along the sandy tracks to explore as many of these wonders as we could. A lunch stop at a vegetarian cafe introduced us to an amazing tamarind leaf salad – totally need to get the recipe for this one back home!
In the darkness of Christmas morning we crawled out of bed, rode along the pot holed roads, found a temple and climbed it as the dawn twilight was starting to break. It wasn’t exactly a private spot as we jostled for space with the other 100 early risers on the narrow ledge, but we’d been assured it was a winning spot to witness the famed magical sunrise over Bagan.
As the sun slowly crept over the horizon, a legion of hot-air balloons drifted across the sky. Smoke from cooking fires drifted low across the valley, shrouding the temples below. Slowly the smoke took on a brilliant golden colour, backlit from the rays of the rising sun, with the balloons spread across the landscape in front of us. Before the show had finished the crowds started to dissipate and before long we were the only ones left high up on the temple steps.
What better time and location to make a certain proposal 🙂
