Monthly Archives: June 2014

E-bikes in Bagan

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My second day in Bagan I decided I wanted to explore a little further out, so I rented an e-bike.

I’m not sure I got the manliest looking bike though.
Me: it’s yellow.
Owner: Yeah, yellow. Good colour, you like?
The customer service is pretty good.  If you have a low battery or a flat tire they can come and give you a new bike on the side of the road and take this one back to be repaired.  Right now the rental is $8 per day, which seems resonable.
They are made in China and all the gauges are in Chinese.  They travel about 40 km/h and you get about a 30 km range on them.  After that you have to peddle until you find a phone to call for assistance!
I found a few unique temples.  Kyansittha Umin is very close to the famous golden stupa, Shwezigon.  What is unique about Kyansittha though, is that it’s built into a cliff face.  Tunnels are dug through the rock.  I think many people skip it because I was the only one there.  It’s locked and no pictures are allowed.  However, a nice woman living next door had the key and she walked me through it in broken English.  She had a flashlight too, which was handy. There are many murals inside of when Mongolians where in Burma.  The Burmese say it was an invasion, but there seems to be a difference of oppinion from scholars.  The images seem to show Mongols shooting pigeons along side the Burmese, not shooting at each other.
The other one was supposed to have a great view from the top.  Dhammayazika is about 3km outside of New Bagan and you could climb to the top.  Unfortunately, they are doing renovations and it’s closed.  It was still interesting to see how they use bamboo scaffolding and no safety gear!
I ended with sunset at the top of one of the taller ones with many other tourists and many touts selling paintings and T-shirts.  They kind of mob you on the way down.  Even still, most vendors seem friendly, if a little pushy.

Bagan

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The flight made it safely from Inle lake to Bagan.  Flying time was 45 minutes and they served a drink.  It was a pretty uneventful flight with a little turbulence on the decent due to heavy rains in the area.

Once we landed, my baggage was hand delivered to me and then passed off to a taxi driver that took me into town to find a hotel.
This image took 30 minutes to transfer, it’s actually worse than dial up speed!
There are more than 2000 temples, pagodas, and monuments in Bagan so there is no hope of seeing everything in 3 days.  That said, most of the major sights can be seen in 2 full days.
Getting around
The temples are very spread out in Bagan so walking is not an option.  You can hire a taxi for around $30 per day and ride in A/C comfort.  If you would like to do things your own way, you can hire a bike or an e-bike.  The latter bring battery powered so less energy from you is required!
I figured I would try the first day with a regular bike.  It worked out fairly well and I did about a 20km round trip.  The downside is that it is very very hot.  It hit 40 degrees so a lot of water was required.
I think tomorrow an e-bike is in order!
Fees and touts
There is a mandatory fee of $15 to enter.  They will take it at the airport or the bus station.  After that entrance to all the temples is at no additional charge.  There are, however, a lot of people trying to sell all kinds of paintings, ceramics, etc and they get very pushy.  If you see something you like, negotiate hard; otherwise ignoring them works well.
Food
There is a large amount of good and cheap food here.  You can get Myanmar food, but also Chinese, Thai, Western, etc.  They are mostly free standing places that seem to have good hygiene standards, which can be hard to find in some places here!

Inle lake to Bagan

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After taking the train to get to Inle lake I was determined to never see the inside of a Burmese train again!  That left 2 options to get to Bagan; a 12 hour bus journey, or a 1 hour flight.  Asking around at a few travel agents, the price seems to be fixed at $89 including a $2 fuel surcharge.  The choice seemed clear!

Myanmar has quite a few domestic airlines with most of them having part ownership with an international corporation.  I’m flying Air Mandaley which gets it’s aircraft and maintenance from France. None of the airlines can fly internationally because they don’t follow IATA safety regulations, but since there is so little air traffic in Myanmar, the risk seems minimal.  I think a bigger risk is taking a taxi to the airport to catch your flight!
The terminal in Heho is very basic.  There are no baggage belts.  Instead, a member of airline staff hand delivers luggage to you.  There are no seats assigned to you, just scramble seating like on European low cost airlines.  I got a paper ticket that was hand written and copied with carbon paper.
With the tourist economy growing so fast in Myanmar, we may very well see the airline sector growing very fast too in the next five to ten years.  Let’s just hope they they put safety first above profit.