Wandering through Bagan | Burma
After my adventures with Zar Ni in Mandalay, I headed to the next, and perhaps most famous town on the Burma tourist trail: Bagan.
I arrived in the dead of the night, around 4 am, but luckily I was able to find accommodation. A note to travelers: if you arrive in the middle of the night there will be bike rickshaws waiting to take your money in exchange for porting you up the street to guesthouses you could’ve easily walked to in 5 minutes. The bus drops you on the main road, and the bike rickshaws over charge, so I recommend walking if you can. I stayed at Inn Wa Hotel on the main road, which as the reviews point out was “ok for the price.”
In the morning, I was reunited with Cam and Sarah in the lobby of our hotel, a happy surprise for sure. We decided to band together and rent bikes to pedal our way through the famous pagodas just outside of town. We had fun biking, and if you have a couple days in Bagan, I recommend biking at least one of the days. But make sure to check your tires. I got a flat about 15 minutes in, but magically, out of no where, a young Burmese man appeared with all the tools to fix my bike. He was an artist, and in exchange for the tire patch job, I bought two of his sand paintings.
Did i mention that on my last day with Zar Ni, I drank some water from a little clay pot out in the middle of nowhere, and the next day, after arriving in Bagan, I fell very sick? Yes, that happened, and it was a miserable 3 days, but luckily I had Cam and Sarah there to prevent me from feeling totally alone and depleted. Thank goodness for travel friends!
