Myanmar - Bagan

The flight from Mandalay to Bagan took about 30 mins. 

It was 8.40 a.m. when we visited a wet market.

Mostly the ladies sit sidesaddle on the motorcycle, with both legs hanging together on the passenger seat. This one is skillful sharing the seat with a big grocery basket.

One thing I have to mention is everyone needs in their bare foot walking in the temples/pagodas in Myanmar.

Steve has his longyi ready when going in Shweigon Pagoda, but he couldn't figure out how to wear it without it falling down, a local guy helped him figure it out.

    

Here he was wore the longyi nicely.

An indentation in the stone, shaped like an eye, reflects the pagoda.

The van stopped for us just so we could see this long hallway leading to the temple.

One of the four Buddha statues in Htilominlo Temple.

We also stopped at a lacquer-ware workshop.  Here, a design is being carved.

Ananda Temple.

Ananda Temple has four standing Buddhas, one for each direction.

We climbed up to this temple, which already seemed crowded with people waiting for the sunset. Stanley said he would like to go to another, less crowded pagoda beside it.   

Some of us followed him but Steve and some others stayed at the other temple.

I saw Dhammayangyi Temple from the top. 

The sunset lights above the clouds was beautiful. 

We were up there very late.  The local boys came up a few times and tried to tell us, no light, must go down. However, Stanley still wanted to see more.

I saw the boys go down, and after a while they were all gone. I was nervous because I didn't have a torch with me, so advised we should leave. The stairs inside are short and narrow, really dark. Luckily two people had torches to find our way down. A little adventure.

We stayed two nights in Arthawka hotel in Bagan.

This is Thanakha, the paste made from wood ground with water.  Many Burmese like to put it on their face. It is traditional makeup, but also works as sunblock.

I also put some on.

The next early morning, we went out at 5 am, before the sunrise.

Sunrise in Bagan - Spectacular!

So nice watching the sunrise from hot air balloons.

Of course they paid for it.

We didn't pay, but we get to see the sunrise with the balloons in the view. It was nice too.

Pagodas as far as the eye can see. 
This pic was just the narrow field of view looking off the sunrise side of a pagoda. Many, many more pagodas outside the field of view of the camera and to the North, West, and South. Over 4,000 pagodas in Myanmar.

I asked Steve to put one hand in the shape of a heart.

How come he couldn't shape it well in both directions.

This temple has two "eyes", where light shows through. 

I have no idea what their names are.  Pagodas are everywhere!

Thatbyinnyu Temple, I looked it up on Google.

This is Shwesandaw Pagoda where we went to watch the sunrise.

We went to a village after breakfast.

We asked the kids in the village, what they want to be?

Here we got a boy who wants to be an engineer.  He got a picture with these two 'senior' engineers. 

Along the way from Bagan to Mt. Popa, we stopped at a roadside stand that produces peanut & sesame oils, and a few products made from toddy palm juice.
Here, peanut oil is being made the old fashioned way.

One of the products made from the palm juice is moonshine (for lack of a better term.) Sorry if some of the terms below are not correct, but I'm not a distiller. smile emoticon 

The toddy palm juice is cooked down to a thick syrup in woks. After that, it's mixed with rice that's been pounded down to create a mash, and the mash is allowed to ferment for 2 days. 

Looking at the pot containing the mash, the bubbles were coming up so fast that we thought it was boiling, but those are bubbles from the fermentation. 

The still is a clever setup using 3 pots, embedded in a fire pit. The mash is poured into the clay pot. A large pan of cool water is put over the pot to act as the condenser. The evaporated alcohol condenses on the bottom of the pan, then drips into a collector that runs out to nearby bottles.

The finished product is about 40% alcohol (80 proof), and tastes like a smooth vodka. Not bad stuff.

Our lunch on lacquer-ware plates.

We went to Popa Mountain Resort to have a view. 

Zoom in to take a picture of the monastery on Taung Kalat.

Sunset again at Sulamani temple.

I might get the names wrong for some of the temples.

Dinner with a traditional puppet show at Nanda restaurant.

The next morning, we went to the community area where they were setting up for a Buddhist Kathina festival.

However, we didn't have time to see the event, because we needed to go to the airport to fly back to Yangon.