Bagan / ပုဂံ, Myanmar (12/29/2016 - 01/02/2017)

We woke up well before dawn to take a slow ride down the Irrawaddy river from Mandalay to Bagan. It was fascinating to see the majority of large structures along the river devoted to worship, with most other structures being small houses in which the mostly rural villagers resided.

There was a quick pitstop at a local village (albeit slightly Potemkin-ish) to get a sense of what rural life is like and of course, buy local crafts and mementos.

After over 12 hours for 170 km or so, we arrived in Bagan, an ancient city famous for its thousands of pagodas and temples, many built over 250 years starting at the turn of the second millennium. Like Angkor Wot, it's fascinating to see how many of these were overgrown with vegetation and lost over time, however not to the same extent as this area was continuously inhabited (thank the Mongols for the first decline).

Here is where we met the most interesting person on our trip - our tour guide was the very first local tour guide in Bagan.  He had studied chemistry and physics in the 1960s, and was working at a local chemical plant during the week, but helped his parents with their stall on the weekends. He would see tourists come to Bagan, led by guides from Yangon who basically made up stories rather than tell the true history.  Frustrated time and time again he began running tours 'to set the record straight'.  It was a real pleasure hearing his stories, not just of Bagan, but of Myanmar, and how it's changed in 60 years - not all the stories were easy to hear, sadly.

We left Myanmar with heavy hearts, but with hope - a large country with a young population, hungry for improving their condition, opening their eyes to the world, and having their first tastes of freedom in decades. I am sure they will catch up in time, especially considering how much investment is flowing into the country to this day. I hope that the leaders will value long term gains and development over short term riches.