Bagan and now Mandalay
27 August 2017 | Mandalay
Zacharie, Elodie and mummy
24.8.17
Today was our last day in Yangon and we needed to get out of the city - unbelievably dirty and noisy. We took the ferry across the river to Dalla and then a cab to our destination - a snake temple. Supposedly more than 40 pythons have chosen this particular temple as their home and are worshipped. Interesting for everyone as its not every day you can stroke a python. Quick walk round the lake and onto the nightbus. Yes we are really backpacking and took a nightbus to Bagan.
25/8/17
At 7o clock we got off the our overnight bus ( kids slept fantastically adults wrecked....) and got a taxi . When we arrived at the hotel dad had an argument with the driver about what price to pay. Once resolved we got our bearings, mum and dad had a quick nap, a dip in the pool and we were off to Old Bagan. An old walled city with some of the most important historical monuments in Burmese Buddhism - Bagan was the effective centre of the original nation state. Really interesting, really hot too...
26.8.17
Today we hired 2 electric motorbikes to see around lots of Pagodas .Unfortunately the
hardest part of the journey was right at the beginning when we were not used to them yet.It was a sand road ,dad,Audrey and Zac were fine but mum and I had a couple of skids which ended in the bike falling over on it's side.No one got hurt !Half way through the sand road I had to swap to dad's bike so it was easier for mum to drive.When the sand road finished I went back to mum.Then we went around some Pagodas .Luckily a few of them had murals to look at.After a few temples Audrey ,Zac and I got bored but to boost our energy we saw a monastery where monks live.
26/8/17
Today we went for a walk to see one final pagoda . One quite weird thing is that we ourselves are curiosities and people rush to take photos. Especially of Audrey then the other children but even of Nick - we think because of the burgeoning facial hair after 5 weeks! when we came back Zac ,Audrey and I got one final swim then we had to get on an four hour minibus to Mandalay . We had so many bags we took up all the luggage place in the mini bus, luckily the of the rest of the people were light travellers . We felt every bump.....
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