bagan - myanmar (burma)

our next stop after yangon? easy, it was the ancient temple city of bagan.

• for us was old bagan very similar to cambodia's 1700 km far Angkor Wat because of the hot and dry climate, sands soil and also similar friendly + tolerant buddhist population. anyway, the monuments were completely different even as they were built almost in the same time (9th - 12th century a.d.)
• the are 2,227 monuments right now, before the earthquake in 1975 there were 4,000+ budhist monuments (stupa vs. temple vs. pagoda)
• our favorite monuments? here are few of them: manuha phaya, the biggest dhammayan gyi pagoda, the highest thatbyinnyu phaya, the hindu one, the 920 years old #1056 was probably our nicest climbing adventure, the indian style ananda temple, swezigon pagoda, the #1686 especially inside (close to the biggest temple), buphaya at the jetty and riverside restaurants, ... don't worry about these strange names, you will find for sure your own favorite temple where you spent your nice & valuable time..... 
• my dears, forget balloon, boat, horse, bicycle and taxi: the small chinese e-bikes are the way to explore this cultural UNESCO heritage. just don't forget the helmet for your own safety ;-). well, for the best of all wives and me it was better to take one e-bike for two as it made our communication easy and we could spontaneously decide where to stop and where to turn next.

sunrise over bagan

e-bike is the way how (tourist) mobility works in bagan ... 

or you could try to fly :-)

#1686

stupa climbing

the highest temple

manuha phaya + best of all wives

buphaya

#1056

burmese romeo & juliett

relaxing in our hotel kumudara pagoda view

swezigon pagoda

lunch

good-bye bagan, buddhas & bikes

more pictures here.

yangon / myanmar (rangoon / burma)

our next stop after singapore was yangon, the biggest city of myanmar, former known as rangoon and burma.

• myanmar, the golden land, which we would probably call the land of the everywhere lying waste today
• yangon? well, it is a 5 million souls metropole where all maynmar's nations & religions co-exist close to each other, i would say peacefully co-exist...
• there are many, many huge rivers in yangon, just see the picture where 3 of them merge together
• my most interesting experience? the trash hero myanmar action: cleaning of the botataung jetty => thank you folks for making the planet a better place :-)

and yes, don't miss our next stop bagan.

... yangon/myanmar ... more coming soon or never ...

botataung pagoda (botahtaung)

what a tourist attraction, two europeans :-)

in the streets of yangon

shwedagon pagoda

good-bye, shwedagon pagoda

two of us

sule pagoda

the botataung jetty, the place where our beautiful ship hotel was :-)

what about a 'how to' video from trash hero facebook page? here we GO

 the yangon river is not the biggest one in yangon, if you asked me :-)

on board of the vintage luxury yacht hotel, which was not much more expensive than the hostel we have had in yangon after we came back from bagan

swastika = symbol of good luck

more yangon pictures here
eof