Bagan baby!

Well we eventually stopped throwing up enough to catch a 11h bus to Bagan.

Most amazing couple of days!

The first morning I got up at 5am to go hot air ballooning over Bagan. Used up all my Christmas dollars (thanks dad, Merry Christmas!) to go, but it was seriously magic. I've always wanted to go hot air ballooning and they say that Bagan is one of the most spectacular places in the world to go because it's plain dotted with hundreds of temples.

We were picked up at 530am in a cushy little vintage bus and taken to the launch site, where they had the balloons laid out on the ground and were testing the flames. They had little safari stools out and a coffee/tea and biscuit station!
"Coffee or tea Madame?"
We sipped tea under the stars.

They inflated all the balloons and the European pilots read out names of people in their basket. 16 in each. We were with a Belgian called Christophe who had his own hot air balloon company in Belgium but the Bagan balloon season coincided with the Belgium off-season so was here piloting for a few months.

I was really amazed at how low we were able to fly. We scraped quite a few tree tops and at one stage we were almost at ground level just floating over a lake next to one of the biggest temples. You could really appreciate the massive sprawl of all the temples from the air and they were lit beautifully with the sunrise.

Apparently the winds were actually very high for our flight and it went quicker than normal. Christophe told us to brace ourselves for what he predicted would be a "sporty" landing. There was a team of Burmese guys running after us through a field, waiting to anchor us once we dropped the line.
"It's going to be a fast one!"
He dropped the line and they managed to get us to stop just before we hit a tree. Apparently it was the fastest landing of the season so far (and apparently he doesn't just say that every time).

The buses arrived and they set up a table of croissants, banana bread, fresh fruits and rosé. Damn that was amazing.

The next 2 days we rented these amazing things called e-bikes which are electric powered bicycles that go about 20km/h. Ridiculous amounts of fun. I laughed like a maniac for about the first 10min I zoomed around beeping people. Oh and I made sure I got the pink one of course, just to add to the level of ridiculousness. Pink one ended up to be pretty crap though because every time you went over a decent bump the power cord would jiggle out of place. So then I got a baby blue one the second day, and I managed to get a puncture tyre on the way to sunrise and had to ride in the baby seat of Saioa's til I could go and get a new one. My gold e-bike was the winner because it could somehow outspeed Simon's and Saioa's. We definitely were not racing around without helmets. E-bike: Full Throttle.

So yes that's how we spent some amazing days, riding from temple to temple.
"Wanna check that one out??"
I have so many photos of temples and sunrises and sunsets. All on my camera though so you guys will just have to wait with baited breath until I can get to a computer with a decent Internet connection. You might be waiting a while.

Yesterday we went real Indiana Jones and were following ox cart tracks around to all the temples that weren't on the main roads. Some of the paths were so sandy that we were riding with our legs out, paddling through the sand with our feet. Saioa managed to stack it twice in a minute which was a record. Great thing about e-bikes is that they're so light and there's no exhaust to burn up your legs on, so you really don't get hurt.

We were working from 3 maps of the area that were all different, so at one point a road I lead us down ended up not going to the temple that I thought it would. I could see the temple just to the left so rather than back track, I decided to fearlessly lead us all across a ploughed field. E-bike: Off-road Challenge. It was bumpy to say the least. I'm so glad we didn't end up blowing our tyres. I really don't think it was very good for the bikes. Or our asses. I actually had bleeding thumb knuckles because they somehow bashed on the sharp plastic corners of part of the handlebars an started bleeding. I just wanted to add that part in because it makes me sound even tougher.

Eventually we had a choice of corn crop or forest. Forest was the right choice because we managed to find a trail to the right path! Winner. There was a bus load of tourist monks at that temple, an we spent several minutes posing for photos with each of the monks.. Which was kind of an odd experience. You just don't imagine monks with camera phones.

Eventually we made it to the main road again. Got held up behind an ox cart a couple times. Traffic hey. Saioa then puncture her tyre. I felt sorry for the hotel guys, everything time we walked through the doors basically they'd had another e-bike to go pick up from the side of the road. They'd put it in the boot of their sedan, but it wouldn't fit of course so one of the guys would have to sit in the boot with it and hold it in.

Anyway those are some of the highlights of the best days of my trip in Burma. I'm basically Lara Croft. Oh and I managed to eat a proper meal again so that was a massive victory also.

Took an overnight bus back to Yangon last night so here I am working out my next move. I'm thinking Mawlamyine tomorrow.

Xx