Asia trip - July 2015

Bagan, Myanmar, July 22, 2015

The taxi driver came to collect me after an early breakfast. Almost the entire day was taken up by driving to various pagodas, all very awe-inspiring and impressive. It's rather difficult to keep them apart however. I won't bore readers with their names (I might misspell them mostly anyway).  We went to the highest pagoda, the second-highest one, the oldest one, the one with the most interesting Buddha, etc etc.  We started with the pagodas outside the city wall, then to Old Bagan (within the city walls) and eventually to New Bagan, that part of town which was created when in 1991 (or was it 1995?) the government instructed everyone to leave Old Bagan, give up their houses and re-settle somewhere else. They wanted to free Old Bagan from people and re-create it's original atmosphere (or something which was more appealing to tourists). Within a month people had to leave Old Bagan; water and electricity was cut off and people had no choice. That way New Bagan was founded (now the cheaper part of town with some cheaper hotels and the residential part).

On one of the pagodas I visited in Old Bagan there was a painter perched precariosly high up on the roof of the pagoda. His pictures were quite nice and after a long chat, I couldn't resist buying a couple. We negotiated hard but I'm sure I overpaid. He also said he was very frightened to move somewhere else and try his luck in Thailand or Malaysia, as he feared the fighting between Chinese and Malaysian gangs who didn't seem to like the Thai guestworkers there.  He would rather go to Singapore or Japan aove all, but had not money to do so. 

The taxi driver then took me to a smallish pagoda which had the best view for the sun-set. Only there was no sunset; it simply was too cloudiy. Instead I got talking to a Chilenian girl, Carolina, who had been traveling the world by herself for the last six months and intended to do so for the next six months. "I'm a slow traveler," she confessed. "I may have to spend another year doing so to see some more countries." She wasn't too worried about a job, family or anything else and partially worked along the way to bolster her travel budget a little. And off she went into the sunset I would like to write (but as I said there was no sunset) after we had made our way down the precarious stone stairways from the top of the pagoda back to the ground.

Earlier at the same pagoda I got taking to one of the local youngsters who was quite frank about the difficult economic cirucumtances in the country. It was difficult to make a living and without some money almost impossible to enjoy a higher education or to get married, etc. His insights about social life in the country were most interesting, though no doubt he also tried to appeal to my conscience and my wallet.

The pool beckoned in the evening I must admit and not much else. Pagoda hopping is exhausting and drainy I noticed. It's a tough life....