Bagan
Asia 2016
We got up at 7 a.m., had breakfast at the hotel, and set off again on a journey through the temples.
Temples in the Field
We drove into the very heart of the desert with temples. Most of them here are locked up, and you can’t enter the temples. But there are also very old temples, overgrown with grass, among the fields — I really like those. They are wild, lonely, darkened by time, but impressive.
Three Buddhas in a Desert Temple
We found a temple in a field, there wasn’t even a path leading to it, but Buddhas were always sitting in the temple. It was also amazing that the wall paintings and stucco inside this abandoned temple were very well preserved. There we climbed up to the upper platform, from where smaller stupas were visible.
View of the temples from the roof of a half-ruined building
Then we reached a small village; it even has a school. There we climbed onto the roof of a half-ruined building. Such buildings appear here from time to time — they are rectangular in plan, and probably served as monasteries. This building was completely warped with age, and there was no staircase left inside, but it was easy to climb up along the remains of the walls. The view from above was very beautiful.
The sun had already started to beat down, so we went home. Volchiy fell asleep; he was tired from all these days. I usually slept for a couple of hours during the day, and he worked.
At first I wrote in my diary, washed my pants, then fell asleep too.
A stupa off the tourist trails
In the evening, we set off rather late. We also decided to stop for something to eat, because since morning we still hadn’t eaten anything else. We had some chicken noodles, drank delicious milk tea, and set off on our way.
We drove a little in a different direction, where we had not been before. There we found a large stupa. Everything around it was overgrown, and it gave the impression that it was completely abandoned and wild. We climbed the steps to the upper platform, but access to the very top was blocked. Around the stupa, along the perimeter, there were still carvings preserved in the stone.
Drawings on the stupa
It was already almost dark, and we decided it was time to head home… On the way, little temples emerged from the dusk; even after three days, you never stop being amazed at how many there are here… It was sad to say goodbye to Bagan.
