No ’bout a doubt it – Bagan is one of the most extraordinary places I’ve ever been. We arrived at 7AM after a comical flight from Yangon (No name given or ID checked at the check-in counter, a sticker on our shirts indicated which flight we were taking, an old plane with an unnerving logo/tagline) and I was super stoked to come in with the sunrise and see dozens of hot air balloons floating all over the plain.
We rented electric scooters (E-bikes) from our hotel in Nyaung-U and spent most of the first day acclimating to our desert-like surroundings, getting our bearings straight, and testing the speed and terrain limitations of an electric scooter.
The following two days were spent zipping all over the dusty plain, aiming for and exploring any stupa/pagoda/temple that looked interesting.They allow you to climb on some and explore the upper levels of others, and sometimes we were completely alone at huge ancient pagodas. Each one had something unique to explore. Felt some real life Lara Croft/Indiana Jones exploration…add some temple-appropriate clothing and subtract the guns – but you get the point. It was awesome. By 1PM each day the temp got up to over 100°F, so we would go out early in the morning and come home midday to spend time by the pool in the afternoon.. Then, we’d go back out in the evening to explore some more and find some of the delicious vegetarian food that abounded in Bagan.
The night before our last day, I vowed to get some great photos of hot air balloons over the stupas. The balloons take off at dawn from different place each day, (location dependent on windspeed and other environmental factors) so they are kinda difficult to track down. Aleksiy and I got a bit of a late start, but had such a blast speeding over the plain, trying to get as close to the balloons as we could. Photos didn’t turn out that great (2 in the slideshow below), but the balloons were clear to the eye and magical as ever.
Tales of a Southeast Asian Invasion 