SEA2014: Day 9: From Mandalay to Bagan: Cruising the Irrawaddy River

After three days of Mandalay, it was time for the next stop: Bagan! At 6AM, I embarked on a boat which would bring me to Beautiful Bagan in about 10hours. This gave me 10hours to enjoy the views from a river boat, relax and prepare myself for the next stop of SEA2014. 

View from the boat

For not less than 39.000Kyat (=€35), I was told that I would enjoy a fabulous day, relaxing on a boat floating down the Irrawaddy River to Bagan. Luckily breakfast and lunch were included in this price... Soon after embarkement, I met a group of four Belgians who were travelling through Myanmar as well. We ended up chatting for a while about travelling, good old Belgium and other 'casual talk'. But I must say that it was nice to speak dutch to strangers once again, being so far away from home (and "all alone")...

In the meanwhile, the view from the boat was indeed amazing and I got the opportunity to get some great pictures. My second-to-last Knack went through rather quickly and I even got up-to-date with my Lonely Planet reading. After lunch, I got a couple of hours of siesta before waking up while we were already heading for the shore in Bagan. 

Once of the boat, I got once again approached by a ton of taxi-drivers but I chose to take a horse-drawn carriage instead. I just had to... (sorry, dad!) Looking back at it, I was actually sold a cat in a bag as I ended up driving the carriage all the way from the port/beach to my hostel so the driver basically didn't have any work except for receiving money in the end. 

In Nyaung U, one of the three main towns in the Bagan-region, I ended up following a friend's advice and stayed at the May Kha Lar Guest House, a cheap and reasonable place to stay. Right after checking in, three elder australians (one of which was Kiwi, sorry), who were on the same boat as me checked in as well and I kindly approached them asking if I could join them for dinner. During dinner it appeared that all three guys were actually already retired and now travel for about a month once a year together. Now that's how I want to spend my pension! We decided that we would get to know the Bagan region together the next day and so be it. A day of sightseeing with three retired awesome dudes from Australia/New Zealand were coming up!

Beautiful Bagan, protected by UNESCO, it could begin.

peace out_ & safe travels_