My long weekend

I hung out with Katy, Babush & co on the Friday. We swam, ate well, and did some crafts shopping but the real highlight was visiting a family-run glass factory that was destroyed in 2008's Cyclone Nargis. You walk through the shattered glass and can carefully rummage through to find salvage, which can be bought (after the chips have ben filed down). It's a sad but impressive site/sight.

On Saturday they headed to the beach for 3 days, while I did 24 hour pilgrimage to Bagan - the plain of 2000+ pagodas that were built a thousand years ago. It's a unique place in my travels, though any spirituality has given way to tourism. There were people praying at each statute of Buddha (and there are many!). But even the dawn climb up one pagoda was done in the company of 30 other tourists - one of whom took a phone call at the top...

To be honest, the the whole visit reminded me of going on safari in East Africa (you fly in, hie a car or bike and rive to this dry plain. Approach the "sights" (except you can climb some of these), eat with the tourists at the restaurants and hotels clustered around the edge of the 'park", get up at dawn and watch the sun & hot air balloons rise, and then zoom back to the city.

The interior of the domestic terminal (gold and teak)

The exterior - gold and curlicues

Some of the 2000+ pagodas on the plain

They are very steep

the parasol at the top - it has a better name

the brick roof - many of them are plastered over and some have ancient frescoes.

such as these that mostly survived the massive earthquake in 1975 (you can see the rushed patch work)

a wall of niches for Buddha

The Indian government is helping to restore one of the main pagodas with very fine sandstone carvings  - plus, one of Buddha's devouts

That pagoda from the courtyard

My feet at the end of the day

Dawn over Bagan

Sunset / moon rise