Trotting around Bagan

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Today was a free day, so I didn’t wake up until 7:45am.  So nice to get a good night sleep.  J.P. had arranged for one of the horse carts to pick me up at 9:30, and after breakfast I met my driver, Kolin.  I showed him the Lonely Planet where we’d marked the temples we saw yesterday and told him to take me wherever.

My horse cart and driver

Great to be without the group and move at my own pace.  I took my time wandering around the temples and a few times asked Kolin to stop at random unnamed temples.  It was a fabulous day ending with sunset at Buledi.  The list of temples I visited, again with information from Lonely Planet, is below.

At lunch at Sarabha restaurant I ended up talking with a young German couple who asked me to join them.  They were around my age and we started talking about travelling in Myanmar.  I mentioned something about dinner last night and the conversation went as follows.

Me: Yeah, we took horse carts to dinner last night.

Guy: Where did you eat?

Me: Aroma

Guy: Yeah, we ate there too.

Girl: So you were with the old tour group that came in

Me: Yep.

Girl: We noticed you guys.  So you were the young one with all the older people.

Me: Yes, that was me, but age doesn’t really matter.

Girl: Oh, well, we felt bad for you.  You are welcome to join us for dinner tonight if you want.

I guess I didn’t realize how different our group looks, but I certainly appear to be the outsider on a tour for “older” people.

Sunset in Bagan

I didn’t end up back at the hotel until 6:30pm and we were meeting at 7:15 to go to Mae Soe’s house for dinner.  J.P. wasn’t sure what to expect as the family has never (to our knowledge) hosted a group of tourists.  We had a wonderful evening, which started with chips and roasted peanuts and ended with apples and oranges.  For the main meal, they cooked lentil soup, clear chicken soup, chicken curry, fish curry, vegetables, and long beans in a peanut sauce, all over rice of course.  Delicious.

Mae Soe and her family

We convinced Mae Soe and her brother to sit with us, though they claimed they weren’t hungry.  Her brother is a waiter at a hotel nearby and spoke excellent English.  At the end of dinner, we took pictures with the whole family.  A sister brought out some wood phone holders she’d made and Mae Soe showed us her sand paintings for us to purchase.  I would have liked a sand painting, but none of them appealed to me and the rest of the group ended up buying the lot. We finally said our goodbyes after a lovely evening.

Temples visited on my horse cart tour:

1. Dhajaryhid temple
2. Small temple complex and field workers
3. Ananda Pahto – With its shimmering gold, 170-ft high, corncob-style hti shimmering across the plains, Ananda is one of the finest, largest, best-preserved and most revered of all Bagan temples.  Thought to have been built between 1090 and 1105 by King Kyanzittha, this perfectly proportioned temple heralds the stylistic end of the early Bagan period and the beginning of the middle period.  In 1990, on its 900^th anniversary, the temple spires were gilded.  The remainder of the temple exterior is whitewashed from time to time. The central square measures 58 yards along each side.  The entranceways mark the structure a perfect Greek cross; each entrance is crowned with a stupa finial.  The base and the terraces are decorated with 554 glazed tiles showing Jataka scenes, thought to be derived from Mon texts.  Facing outward from the centre of the cube are four 31-feet standing buddha statues.  Only the Bagan-style images facing north and south are original; both display the dhammachakka mudra (a hand position symbolizing the Buddha teaching his first sermon).  The other two images are replacements for figures destroyed by fire in the 1600s.  All four have bodies of solid teak.  The western and eastern standing Buddha images are done in the later Konbaung, or Mandalay, style.  A small, nutlike sphere held between the thumb and middle finger of the east-facing image is said to resemble a herbal pill, and may represent the Buddha offering dhamma (Buddhist teachings) as a cure for suffering.  Both arms hang at the image’s sides with hands outstretched, a mudra (hand position) unknown to traditional Buddhist sculpture outside this temple.  The west-facing Buddha features the abhaya mudra (the hands outstretched, in the gesture of no fear).  At its feet sit two life-sized lacquer statues, said to represent King Kyanziitha and Shin Arahan, the Mon monk who initiated Anawrahta into Theravada Buddhism. 
4. Shwegugyi – Built by Alaungsithu in 1131, this smaller but elegant pahto (temple or shrine) is an example of the middle period, a transition in architectural style from the dark and cloistered to the airy and light.  Its name means ‘Great Golden Cave’ and its corncob sikhara is a scaled-down version of the one at Ananda, while its reach marks a move towards verticality.  Inside you’ll find fine stucco carvings, a teak Buddha and stone slabs that retell (in Pali) its history, including that it took just seven months to build.  Missing from the scripts are details of its builder’s demise – Alaungsithu’s son brought his sick father here in 1163 to smother him to death.
5. Mahabodhi Paya – Unlike any other Bagan temple, this monument is modeled after the famous Mahabodhi temple in Bodhgaya, India, which commemorates the spot where the Buddha attained enlightenment.  Built during the reign of Nantaungmya in 1215, the spire is richly coated in niches enclosing seated Buddha figures, rising from a square block. 
6. Bupaya – On the bank of the Ayeyarwaddy this cylindrical Pyu-style stupa, named for bu (gourd), is said to date back further than any Bagan temple.  Locals claim it dates to the 3^rd century; most likely it was erected around the same time as the city walls (around 850).  What’s seen now – a gold stupa above a row of crenulated terraces leading down to the water – is a complete reconstruction; the 1975 earthquake demolish the original.
7. Gawdawpalin Pahto – One of the largest and most imposing Bagan temples. Built during the reign of Narapatisithu and finished under that of Nantaungmya, it’s considered the crowning achievement of the late period.  Its name means “Platform to which Homage is Paid”.  The most recent homage was its heavy-duty reconstruction following damage sustained in the 1975 earthquake.
8. Mimalawg Kyaung – A nice set of chinthe (half-lion/half-dragon mythical beasts) guards the stairway leading up this small, square monastery platform, constructed in 1174 by Narapatisithu.  In front of the monastery is a brick-and-stucco Tripitaka library next to a large acacia tree.  Atop the steps, a tiered roof (with a newer gold-capped hti) contains a large sitting Buddha.  Archaeologists discovered an intricately carved 2.5 inch votive tablet here that contained 78 sculpted figures.
9. Lunch break at Sarabha
10. Shwesandaw Paya – The graceful white pyramid-style pagoda with steps leading past fiver terraces to the circular stupa top.  Following his conquest of Thaton in 1057, King Anawrahta built this pagoda at the center of his newly empowered kingdom.  The terraces once bore terracotta plaques showing scenes from the Jataka but traces of these, and of other sculptures, were covered by rather heavy-handed renovations.  The now-gilded zedi bell rises from two octagonal bases, which lead to the five square terraces.  This was the first Bagan monument to feature stairways leading from the square terraces to the round base of the stupa.  This stupa supposedly enshrines a Buddha hair relic, brought back from Thaton.  The hti, which was toppled by the earthquake, can still be seen lying on the south side of the paya compound.
11. Guni temple
12. No. 753
13. No. 751
14. Sulamani – This broad two-story temple is one of Bagan’s most attractive, with lush grounds behind the surrounding walls.  It’s a prime example of later, more sophisticated temple styles, with better internal lighting.
15. Thabbeik Hmauk –This sikhara-topped temple looks like a miniature version of its more famous neighbor.  Much of its interior was damaged by the 1975 earthquake, but there are multiple stairways up to a wrap-around meditation chamber with little light.  There are two outside terraces, reached by narrow stairs, with superb views.
16. Buledi (sunset) – Great for its views, this steep-stepped, pyramid-style stupa looks ho-hum from afar.