Arrived in Bagan from Magwe today. Me, the two Germans and the two Dutch who had vome to Magwe from Paya the day before somehow had assumed that we would be going by bus. and accordingly paid what seemed to be a somwhat fair bus-fare. But boy, were we wrong: Instead we went on the back of a pickup-truck. At least it wasn't boring...

The "bus" left quite early - at 7.30. But frankly I wasn't really sad about leaving Magwe behind. The town itself isn't all that bad. But the "Gon Guesthouse" was dreadful: Small, cell-like rooms with bars in front of the windows, a toilet so dirty that I didn't even dare setting down my toilet-paper anywhere and sheets that can't possibly have been changed this century, let alone this year. I don't know how or why the Lonely Planet describes the place as "clean and friendly". They must have been somewhere different. Probably a different dimension. And to add insult to injury they seriously asked for four dollars a night! That is outrageously expensive! As I said: Aside from that the town isn't all that bad as small Burmese towns go. It has a rather big market, access to the river, a number of small restaurants and even a computer-center. They didn't have internet but Counterstrike. So I played against the locals and was of course slaughtered. After all, I've never played CS before, only Tactical Ops. Still, it was fun.

But I digress: So we left Magwe around 7.30 on the back of this small pickup truck. Along went, an alarmingly large and continuously increasing number of people, a very suspicious looking goose (who probably was dead on about being suspicous) and a number of chicken that were tied head-down to the back of the pickup. The reason the chicken and the goose were transported as they were is quite simple: In Myanmar electricity breaks down all the time and you won't find fridges or anything similar in most households. So you have to find a way to transport your food in a non-perishable form - i.e. alive. Probably not very nice for the poor chicken but I'm pretty certain that they had lived a much nicer live to this day then most chicken back home. Aside from the animals we also got an ever increasing number of passengers and ricebags on board - or rather: on the roof. At some point they must have had at least 15 large rice bags on the roof and in the shadow of the car I counted five heads on the roof as well. At that point I slowly started to carefully eye and prod the roof right above me. And the decided that it was better to push all thoughts about being crushed by tons of rice aside. The ride went quite smoothly. Though the driver had to fix something in the motor at some point and at another point seemed to be quite fascinated about some fluid that was leaking out of one of the wheels. But as I said: We got to Bagan eventually.

Now Bagan is really something special: About a thousand years ago this was the center of a kingdom which somehow was obsessed with building temples. And to this day there are still around 2.200 left. A lot of them are "only" as small as houses, but some of the rival the greatest cathedrals of Europe. For once the Lonely Planet really got it right when it wrote: "It is as if all of the medieval churces of europe were build in one space." I have to admit though that the sheer number of temples you find on this plain does border on the ridiculous. I mean, I understand the person who said after 50 temples "oh, I want a bigger and more beautiful one." But was was the guy thinking who build the 2.112th temple? Did he wake up one day and suddenly thought: "Oh, we just neeeeed another temple here!" ? I dunno. It is a bit overdone. But definitely incredibly impressive.