The bikes are in very good condition and with our guide we head first to the local markets. Here the women from around Bagan sell their farm products. Everybody is again very, very friendly and happy to see us. Burmese people are special!! The 20 km, 5 hour tour turns into something very special. Biking through all the temples, villages and back streets is an unbelievable experience and hard to describe. Even though we suffer from the heat, again over 40 degrees, we really enjoy it. The best description of Bagan and Myanmar is given in one of the guide books:
„Marco Polo, who may or may not have visited on his travels, described Bagan as „one of the finest sights in the world“. Despite centuries of neglect, looting, erosion, regular earthquakes (including a massive one in 1975), not to mention the questionable restorations, this temple-studded plain remains a remarkably impressive and unforgettable vision.
In a 230-year building frenzy up until 1287 and the Mongol invasions, Bagan’s kings commissioned over 4000 Buddhist temples. These brick and stucco religious structures are all the remain of their grand city, with the 11th to 13th centery wooden buildings having long gone.
Many restoration projects have resulted in a compromised archaeological site that can badly be described as in ruins. Often the restorations bear little relation to the building styles and techniques used at the time of original construction. Still, Bagan remains a wonder. Working temples give a sense of what the place was like at its zenit, while others conceal colorful murals and hidden stairways that lead to exterior platforms and jaw-dropping views across the plain.“
To travel to Myanmar (Burma) is to encounter men wearing shirt-like longyi, women smothered in thanakha (traditional make-up) and betel-chewing grannies with mouths full of blood-red juice - and that is just at the airport! One of the most fascinating aspects of travel in Myanmar is the opportunity to experience a corner of Asia that, in many ways, has changed little since British colonial times. „This is Burma“, wrote Rudyard Kipling. „It is quite unlike any place you know about“ How right he was: more than a century later Myanmar remains a world apart.

The afternoon we spend cooling down at the pool, get a nice Myanmar massage at the spa and have a nice dinner with Julie, our handling lady.