Stories from Bagan

(This is a late entry because I didn't have time to write it during our move, and then I forgot to do it.)

When we were visiting the archeological site of Bagan (December 2005), things didn't quite work out as we had planned them. We had read in the tour books that we could rent bicycles many places in Bagan, and get around to most of the temples that way. It sounded like a good idea to us, so the first afternoon we were there, we rented bikes from our hotel and headed out. Before we had gone more than about a kilometer, I was riding on the rim of one of my tires. We took the bike to a little shop, and they patched the tube on our tire while we waited. We headed out of New Bagan a second time to the plains where many of the pagodas were. We rode on little dirt paths to get to them, and soon my other tire was down to the rim. By now, we had ridden out past town twice, and it was hot and dusty. Ben offered to ride my bike, since I was worn out after riding these hilly roads with flat tires! These roads (as I'm sure we've mentioned before) don't even come close to the quality of roads we have at home. Imagine the worst road you know of to ride on - all the roads were like this! We rode all the way back into town to the bike repair shop (where we got charged a tourist price again) and went to a tea shop while we waited. We were so pleased that we could go to the tea shop and speak everything we needed in Burmese!

Catherine happy at the teashop...

Ben drinking Star Cola

By now, I was tired of going out to the outskirts of town. I suggested we ride the other way (towards the town of Old Bagan, where the highest concentration of pagodas were, and where we were closer to hotels, taxis, etc). We went to a couple of pagodas, climbed around on them, then we rode to one that looked like a good sunset watching pagoda.

We rode along dirt paths quite a bit, swerved to hit the herds of cattle being shepherded across our path and finally got to the pagoda to realize that the stairs had colapsed long ago. We looked around, and headed back out the long rutted path to the main road. On the way back, my bike (the one that Ben had been riding and the one that hadn't yet had any problems) started thumping every tire rotation. Another bad tire! The sun was rapidly sinking by now, and I was getting nervous. We had a few kilometers to get back on a Burmese road (most than one lane, less than two) that was well trafficked. Ben switched me bikes again - back to our originals - and we thumped our way back to the hotel. By the time we got back the seat post on the bike had also become loose from all the jolting. We were grouchy, hungry, and had missed the first "not to be missed" sunset in Bagan.

I asked Ben that evening if we could call the tour agency and have a driver pick us up. This was included in our trip, but we cancelled it to ride bikes. We were staying 3-5 kilometers outside of the main Bagan area, and I thought perhaps we could catch a car ride into town, rent bikes from there, then turn them in, eat dinner and catch a taxi back.
This helped me feel better about not having to ride so far after dark. We also figured that the bikes in the main town were ridden more than the ones at our hotel, and were less likely to have bad tires. It wasn't that far, but wasn't easy riding for me. The heat and dust made it fell twice as far as it really was.

Ben agreed, and we called to arrange with the driver. He picked us up in the morning, and proceeded to take us to one of the most touristy pagodas. We were bombarded with people trying to sell us stuff, and there were many tourists. We somehow had not communicated effectively that we wanted to be dropped off somewhere to rent bikes. We made a couple of more attempts to communicate, then settled in to see the sights by car.

Later in the day after visiting numerous temples and pagodas we spotted a small cluster of temples and asked the driver to take us to them. He informed us that we couldn't drive there so we decided to get out and walk, and asked him to wait for us. It was here that we met SuSu. These small temples back on the dirt foot paths out of the main trickle of tourism were usually deserted. In fact we went most of the day without seeing other tourists. However at this group of pagodas we saw a little bamboo hut behind the group, and a couple of kids ran over to meet us. The little girl was 8 or 9 years old, and the boy about 14. Their english was amazingly good due to a local english class the 14 year old had attended (all knowledge was then duly transfered to the rest of the siblings it seems). They chattered away and offered to show us around "their" temple group. They took us up the staircase to the upper parts of one of the pagodas, telling us to "mind our heads" all the way up due to the low ceilings (or our immense western height).

Susu's house

I sat beside SuSu while her older brother and Ben explored around. Ben asked if he could take a photo of the two of us, and SuSu agreed. After the photo was taken, she named her price, one dollar. We told her that she should've told us about the charge before the photo was taken. She giggled and said she was joking.

SuSu and her brother offered to take us around to a couple of the other pagodas, and her brother enlightened us on some of the history. He wanted to be a tour guide when he got older, and he seemed well on his way.

SuSu got her english reader when she found out that I taught english, and we practiced together for awhile. When it was time to move on, she grabbed my hand and purposefully strode to our next destination. She hollered to her mother in the little hut to prepare some tea for us, and insisted "you come to my house". We obliged, and were served tea and some fermented tea leaves with sesame seeds, and the family's own crop, peanuts. We ate as much as we could stomach of the fermented tea leaves, but I think it's a delicacy of acquired taste. The children sat with us, although they wouldn't eat. Their mother continued to cook over her fire, preparing dinner for the family while her husband did outside chores.

SuSu's little sister and older sister arrived home from school at 5, and the little sister (about 5 years old) tried to sell us postcards. They showed us a whole package of post cards for 1000 kyats, and then the little one tried to sell us one for 1000 ks., only to be scolded by SuSu for trying to rip us off. She then tried to sell us clothing at an inflated price, very pleased with her skills of upcharging. By then, we all knew that she was teasing us, although I suppose that they upcharge plenty of people at the tourist pagodas.

We got SuSu's address and promised to send photos, although later our driver told us that the photos would never get there. Sadly, we didn't send them, recognizing the truth of what the driver had said. As we left SuSu and her little sister pedaled off to go to a sunset spot, to try one last time to sell their wares with their older brothers. It saddened me to see them, going off to try to make a little bit of money to help their family.

We made it to the Shwe San Daw Pagoda for the sunset, and climbed 5 flights of very steep, precarious stairs to the top. We took many pictures that sunset, some of which you've already seen on the blog.

Our second day in Bagan was a great improvement over the biking fiascos, mostly because of the fun hours we spent with SuSu and her family.

- Catherine