Bike Tour
Nyaungu, Myanmar
March 16, 2009
An hour and a half later (7:30) we arrived in Nyaung U (we left the sand bar at 6 am). We were able to secure a horse and cart (yes, I told you, we are in the 19th century). It was going to cost us 7000 Kyat ($7 US) to get to our accommodations in Old Bagan. We are going to splurge and spend $50/night at Bagan Thande Hotel on the river front. There are some much higher end rooms with views, but we are still cheaping out a bit.
Before entering the town we had to pay at $10 entrance fee. Every time we have to pay the government we have to show our passports and they record our information. There were a few attractions that required us to do this too
In our Horse Cart to the Hote;
. The government likes to keep tabs on the foreigners. ((I have not stated anything about the government in previous blogs while in Myanmar. At the very least, the entries would have been blocked. On this particular day, Khun tried to send a press release about their medical aid trip in Myanmar, it was blocked and he tried rewriting and resending for 4 hours, but was unable to do so. Also, we could not use Internet Explorer for hotmail and the travel pod site because they were blocked, we had to use Firefox.)) The Myanmar government is whack!
Our cart ride was a half an hour to Old Bagan. Along the road there are many, many stupas (bell shaped) and Temples. Officially Bagan is a 42 square mile archaeological zone. There are three main areas - Nyaung U (where the ferry arrived - lots of guest hotels and restaurants), New Bagan (people were relocated here in 1990) and Old Bagan (the old city which only inhabits hotel and government employees)
. All of the areas have hotels, restaurants and markets, but Nyaung U is the largest.
Our hotel room is so luxurious!! It is a bit older and could use a make-over, but there is Kleenex (this has not been in any of our rooms so far and is hard to find any kind of tissues in restaurants or other public sites), a hair dryer, 24 hour electricity, a/c and our room is near the pool!!
We rented bikes from the hotel for $4/day and tried to find a restaurant that would change our money or take US. As soon as we left the hotel many people were asking us if we needed a horse and cart or paintings. We also had two boys follow us on bikes and they collected all of the important details - where we are from, how long we are here, have we been here before, where we have already been? We checked at a couple of touristy restaurants and the rate was not good
. Someone directed us to a souvenir shop that would exchange money. After we had some more Kyat, (we were running low on the boat and had to be careful with our spending. This limited Bill to only one beer yesterday!!) we went to a restaurant for locals instead of a more expensive restaurant. After we had our meal, the boys were gone! Guess they think we are too cheap to bother with now! I had a traditional dish for breakfast (I later found out the name from Katherine - mohinga). It is a fish based soup with noodles and crispy bits (with corn or lentil). I also had a Myanmar tea. It is very sweet, milky and yummy! Bill did not have much to eat there. The guy who understood some English and helped us to order was one of the horse and cart drivers. He was more helpful than the young Waiter who could only say, "no" when we tried to order tea and food.
We ventured to New Bagan to find a spot for laundry instead of paying $1/item at the hotel
Story!
. The guest house called over a girl from a shop across the street. She is going to do our laundry for us tonight.
On our way back we stopped at some stupas and Temples. There are many people (mostly men) selling paintings here. Some are acrylic and some are sand (black and white or colour). They are mostly copied/traced drawings from the paintings in the ancient Temples. I liked the one with tigers (of course, gotta support the team - it is almost opening day!) and another with birds. I have confirmed that the Peacock represents - day and the Rabbit represents - night.
There are also lots of women, men and children selling postcards and laquerware. They are REPEATEDLY asking us to buy and following us around the whole temple. We are never alone for more than 2 seconds. I was beat, so after exploring a few temples down a dirt road and almost wiping out a few times (the road is sandy and the bikes are not mountain bikes), we went back to the hotel for a few hours to relax and sit by the pool.
From 3:00 until dark (6:00) we found some Temples that were a bit off the beaten path. A couple of times we found empty ones and were able to be alone. It was nice. On the way back, Bill's front tire went flat, so it was hard to navigate on the dirt road and we headed back to a surface road.
We went for a quick dip in the pool. Bill had a beer and my vodka soda came back without vodka! So close!!! After making arrangements for a horse, cart and tour guide tomorrow, we hired a different horse and cart for 6000 Kyat (return) to Nyaung U to meet up with some folks from the boat. Being the eternal party planner, I arranged to meet some people at the bus station. Unfortunately we were a bit late and thought we missed everyone. We headed down restaurant row and found Ronald and Khun at the first spot. It turned out that no one could find the bus station but we ended up seeing Celestine, Jerome, Florence, Catherine, Kara and Heather (she is going to hook us up with Ulti in Chang Mai) too! We heard about all the problems that Ronald and Khun had during the day. Ronald's axle broke on his bike rental and Khun could not email his press release due to the Myanmar government.
Florence and Jerome just stayed for a Myanmar or Mandalay beer, but the rest of us went down the road to Hot Pot. Catherine was kind enough to give me a lift on her bike! We had tea leaf salad, tomato salad (divine), pumpkin soup, lentil soup, fried tofu, curry lamb, chapati and pizza. It was quite a feast!!
We partied until after 10:30 and kept our driver out very late!