Chilling in the an air-conditioned room was delightful, especially during a hot and dusty day. Since my backpacking mate was sound asleep, I continued with my laundry, did some reading, and started planning for our Mandalay trip. The only sad thing was, most of the hotels in Mandalay were already fully booked! Nonetheless, after calling a number of hotels we finally got one.
After that, we cycled to Shweleiktee Paya for our final sunset in Bagan. By nightfall, the town seemed to be lacking of the hustle and bustle of the morn. Most of the locals have begun clearing up and tidying up their wares in their shop, except for the restaurants which had just started their business, turning on bright neon lights or putting up "We're Open" signs. We overtook a few horse carts as we proceeded on with our destination.
We arrived around 5.45pm and the sun was already on its way down. Shweleiktee paya is located east of Buledi paya, and hence you can see more temple complexes and pagodas ahead. It is less touristy than the others, but since it is located just beside the road, and everyone tends to come over here whenever they spot tourists swarming on top of the pagoda, knowing its a site for sunset viewing. Thus, slowly there were more and more tourists joining us on top of the pagoda.
As the sun slowly set, I reflected upon my current trip, wondering how the days ahead would be. So far Myanmar has been such a hospitable place, albeit the inflated costs, and the locals sincere and helpful (aside from the touts of course!). And there were just too many stupas; big ones, small ones, tall ones, fat ones, and the unnamed ones. Totally stupa-fied, I hoped that I would be seeing more different stuffs in the next few days of our trips.
Eventually the sunset and the crowds started to disperse, and so did we. Having cycled back towards our hotel, we freshened ourselves and decided to have treat ourselves to a more refined dinner that night.
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