Day 18, Bagan and Salay: Private Tour.

(Posted by Andrew about the events of Dec 29; Bagan to TODO, Myanmar.)

This morning you had the option to do an optional sunrise hot-air balloon tour over Bagan or a mountain bike ride around the city. However, you had to book these long in advance and we're not that organized so we just went with the default tour. This turned out to be a good decision since our group was reduced to just three of us (instead of the normal fourteen) so we essentially got a private tour and could make our own schedule.

An unexpected surprise was as we passed one temple we found a parade of people circling it. Turns out it was a “novation” ceremony for young Buddhist monks just entering the monastery. While the novices are praying inside the temple, their family and friends circle around in a parade in costumes and playing music.

(Once again, our guide Khun lamented that in a few years they will start faking this for tourists. As it was, today we were the only non-Myanmar people around.)

Khun then took us to one of the less visited temples which was a nice break from the maddening crowds of the main temples the day before.

In the afternoon we visited the village of Salay which had (brace yourself) more pagodas and Buddha images. We've seen more than a few of each at this point.