Floyd and I enjoyed a wonderful vacation in Myanmar and Vietnam over Christmas break! Scroll to the bottom for links to blog posts about other parts of the trip.
Here are some of our memories from the city of Bagan, which is famous for the hundreds upon hundreds of temples scattered across the landscape just outside (and even inside) of town.
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| Floyd and I rented little electric scooters and spent most of two days driving around on a self-guided tour. |
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| Locals make their living all through the area. |
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| Some of the temples had ancient writing and artwork inside. |
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| We met a friendly local artist named Koko, who showed us around and volunteered to take some pictures for us. |
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| We bought this painting from Koko (the scene shows his conception of paradise). After he spent hours of his day showing us around for free, we kind of felt like we had to buy something from him as thanks. Unfortunately, it turned out to be REALLY expensive! ($75 U.S. was his starting price, and we did bargain it down a little, but not much. Unfortunately, by the time we heard the price, it was a little too late to back down.) |
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| Some of the temples had external stairways that we could climb up. They were all extremely steep, and we had to take of four shoes and socks every time. |
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| Even monks like to explore ancient monuments (and take pictures with their smart phones)! These two spoke good English and agreed very courteously to take Floyd’s and my picture, when we asked them to. One of them took a picture of us at the same time, so I didn’t feel bad asking to take one of them. |
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| Whoops. We didn’t see this sign until AFTER we had climbed up to the temple (along with dozens of other tourists). Honest! |
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| Lots of tourist hired these little horse carts for the day, along with a guide to show them around. |
A secret interior stairway up to the top of one of the temples! Koko, our volunteer guide who grew up in the area, showed it to us. It felt like something Indiana Jones would experience!
Want to see more memories from our trip? Click on the links below!