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!