Adventures in South East Asia

5 ~ Flat Tires and Ghost Towns

Bagan, Myanmar

March in mainland Southeast Asia featured hot and dry weather. Mind you, the thick air hadn't completely dried up; the humidity still managed to drench clothing daily in a combination of sweat and sunscreen. The insane monsoons came less frequently and everything looked like it was on the verge of dying. If you stayed out in the heat long enough, you'd share nature's sentiments.

Renting bikes seemed like a good idea since Bagan was a historic temple wonderland. It trumped Angkor Wat, Cambodia's revered temples, nearly lost to the ugly hands of development and commercialization, in my opinion. In Bagan, transportation options ranged from rickshaws,  to horse-drawn buggies to bikes. The independence of the latter appealed to us the most, so Mariano, Bryan and I took off on rental bikes.

In a matter of minutes, the town thinned out and for kilometres, the brown and red hues of the earth and temples filled the landscape. The sight of the first modest temple along our path made us squeeze the brakes and hop off. What a gem! Only minutes outside the town, we had already struck temple hunting gold. Not to mention, we could see others on the flat horizon. Shutters clicked as Mariano and I explored the different angles of the temple to capture the stupa, the arches, the doorways and Buddha statues.

Bryan entertained our over-enthusiasm for the moment but wouldn't let us stop again until an impressively sized temple came upon us. We had devoured our appetizer and needed to maintain our appetites.  Bryan soon made the call that a nearby climbable temple would fit the bill just nicely.

The absence of other travellers gave us the confidence to leave our bikes unlocked. We carried our shoes up the steps to the top of the temple, where the altitude graced us with an unforgettable view. Hundreds of temples dotted the landscape, their pointed domes reaching up to the skies. Green trees patched in a few areas of the dry landscape.