Bagan

Tuangoo wasn't much of a town. It was a typical Burmese city with tons of tea shops lining the side of the highway. We quickly settled into our hotel, and made our way to a restaurant. Joey was itching to do some work. With our luck, the power turned off and none of the town had light. We thought the only internet cafe in Tuangoo would have a generator.. Much to our dismay, it did not. We would have to sit in the dark for the rest of the night. Sometimes the lights would flicker on. To my terror, when I was going pee with the light out, when the light turned on there was a gecko on my leg. I flipped out. Not because I was scared of the cute little thing but because when you pick them up their tails fall off. I called Joey into save me and he got the thing off with a shampoo bottle.

The next day we all were treated to a free breakfast at the hotel. Getting free breakfast at a hotel in the morning is always a treat, especially if it's different than your typical baguette and eggs. We were in for a treat because the breakfast involved pancakes and a traditional rice and bean pancake topped with shredded coconut and brown sugar. YUMMMY.

It wasn't too long until we got to Bagan. Within 6 hours we were there. When we arrived we stopped at several hotels trying to find one that was decently priced and not so scary looking. We ended up finding a room for $10 a night that included free breakfast. All of us were pretty stoked that we waited to find a good deal. The rooms were dark and kind of gross, but hey, at $10 you can't really complain.

Joey and I wandered the streets looking for a restaurant to eat at. In Burma, most of the food is of Chinese influence. Not in a good way. Its the obscure chinese food most westerners would rather not dabble with. It'd only been a couple of days and we were already getting sick of fried rice. Joey was also trying to avoid meat because of getting sick from eating at another restaurant in Yangon. We were approached by a man in the street who wanted to show us his favourite restaurant. He started giving us the "I have 3 kids at home and am poor" spiel. If you want money, simply ask for it. Instead this guy had the audacity to sit in the restaurant with us, wait for food he ordered and then leave... saying thank you because we just unknowingly bought it for him. I was quite annoyed that he didn't just ask for food, instead he did it so sneakily. The people at the restaurant were embarrassed and didn't charge us for it.

The next day we had a day full of exploring temples. Bagan has the most temples in a certain square kilometres (can't remember the number but its not very big). All you can see is temples as far as the eye can see. Some are gold, some are limestone, brick. Some are immaculate, some are new and some are ancient and barely standing. It was so diverse. We enjoyed ourselves more than Angkor Wat because there were barely any tourists. The only thing that was rough was all the people trying to sell you stuff. It was really hard to say no to people because you know they are so poor. Joey and I actually found it quite intense. These people were intent on selling you their stuff for way less than it cost just so they could feed their families. Children were everywhere begging for money, food, shampoo, anything. It was very overwhelming because we knew the lives that these people lead and it's not easy being from Burma. We wish we could help everyone but we are not made of money even though the colour of our skin may make them think we do.

At sunset we went to the biggest temple to watch the sun set on the valley of temples. It was an incredible sight to see. Some temples were glimmering with gold and the sheer size of some was really impressive.

The next day we did more temples. Unlike Angor Wat in Cambodia these ones were a lot more interesting because they were more pristine. Some had beautiful cotton paintings on the wall that told stories. We even went into a temple that had a meditation cave. It was like a dungeon underground. It was really neat. It was nice to have a sense of adventure in these caves.