Last night was officially my worst nights sleep on the trip. Not only was it bloody freezing but also at around 3am, someone in the village decided to switch on at full blast, a recording of a local Buddhist monk giving his sermon (a long and loud sermon), which was followed by some Buddhist chanting (long and loud chanting) all of which was on some sort of loop that continued on until around 7am when we had to get up anyway!
We later found out that this was a Myanmar tradition; either during a festival (which generally would cover three nights) or a wedding (which could cover more!!). The people work during the day so have no time to celebrate and therefore save it all until the evening - or some ungodly hour in the morning when tourists just do not appreciate it! Even Kay was getting fed up with the racket and as she pointed out; Buddha wouldn't have been impressed either as he was all about peace and tranquility - of which that noise was neither!
After stumbling into our clothes, TC and I made it upstairs and joined the others for the buffet breakfast on 'the roof terrace' restaurant.
No one was impressed with the cold food that was on offer, especially as it was supposed to be hot!! I went for a couple of rubbery pancakes with a banana and some luke warm fried eggs with some equally temperate rice. TC had attempted the stir fry veg (tepid) and even she only managed a mouthful before pushing it aside with a grimace that would scare off any ancient Myanamese ogre. So you can imagine how awful it must have been.
I suggested she tried the eggs as they were passable as long as she took from the bottom of the dish where they were warmer. TC hurried off over to the buffet table then made it back with nothing on her plate and an even scarier expression than the one earlier! Apparently the rotund German man in the queue in front of her had taken two of the last three eggs and when she questioned if the third was the only one left, he nodded then took that one too.
After a few comments about Germans and their early morning sun-bed reservations, I realised that my little buddy's attitude was nowhere near the Buddhist's 'peace and tranquil' philosophy, when her passing remark as we headed out for the coach was : "After three eggs he'll probably have a heart attack and die".
And so we headed off for the temple complex, we had a whole host of Pagodas waiting for us to explore and empty bellies to go on!
All the pagodas had been built after the ancient Kings of Bagan introduced Theravada Buddhism in the late 11th Century. And the main ones on our list were: The Ananda Phaya , The Dhammayanangyi Temple and The Schwesandaw Temple and at only four days into our trip, I was already getting 'templed out'.
The Ananda Phaya is one of the largest temples in Bagan. Finished in 1090 it has a Spire that reaches 52m high and four entrances instead of the usual two. Kay gave us a load more info, but to be honest I was already struggling to stay awake having had only a few hours sleep the night before, so I apologise for my lack of knowledge.
The second temple was The Dhammayanangyi Phaya; apart from being hard to pronounce, it is a magnificent building, built by order of the notorious King Narathu in an attempt to counter balance the bad karma he had acquired after killing his father, brother and wife in order to succeed to the throne. You may be surprised to hear that his plan didn't quite pan out as he had hoped and two years later he was assassinated by an 'eight man hit squad' paid for by his aggrieved father-In-law.
After a delicious lunch at a restaurant called 'Sanon' - a similar idea to Jamie Oliver's restaurants; a non-profit organisation whereby all the chefs are young, unemployed trainees, being given an opportunity for a free apprenticeship and hopefully a future career - we then headed off to our final temples of the day. En route Kay decided to teach us how to count to ten in Myanamese. We thought it was a bit odd until she got to the number eight and started laughing. You see Myanamese for eight is 'shit'! Boy did she laugh! (Go on, you must admit you had a bit of a snigger yourself.) So I guess the saying: 'Going for a number two' could now be valued to a slightly higher number?
Our final temple of the day was the Shwesandaw Pagoda where we were going to watch the sunset:
Built around 1057, this is another stupa that enshrines a lock of hair from The Buddha. However, this particular stupa was the first in Bagan and one which established the style for those that followed; a series of square terraces, surrounded by rounded battlements.
Next to the stupa is the ... Shinbinthelyaung Temple which houses Bagan's largest reclining Buddha; reaching 18 metres in length! (TC had asked Kay earlier how they knew that Buddha was male when all statues and pictures where of him clothed, unlike some of the classical images of King David and Jesus etc ... and all I can say is with a statue at 708.7 inches long, I was quite thankful he had his clothes on!
And so we reached the end of the day and I was quite thankful to climb into bed; my feet had swollen quite badly, as they are prone to do on these trips and I just needed to put them up and have a good nights sleep ... or so I thought - cue the local Buddhist Monk!
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