Myanmar will always be a country that will keep enticing you to come back for more. Beneath its ancient surface hides a sense of wonderment that is hard to articulate into words. One of the highlights, when travelling to Myanmar, is visiting Bagan, an ancient city located in the heart of Myanmar.
While the majority of travellers will go to Bagan by air from Yangon or Mandalay, wanting to experience crossing parts of the country by a mode of transportation that dates back to its colonial era when Britain first introduced the beginning of the railway tracks, I decided to take the overnight train from Mandalay to Bagan. While travelling by air was by far more convenient and reliable, I wanted to have a glimpse of Myanmar that I would otherwise not have the chance to see. As I received my handwritten train ticket, I was escorted into the carriage that was labeled as ‘Upper Class Cabin’, although there was not much difference between the ordinary class and the upper class cabins. Both were charmingly rustic and dilapidated, featuring walls and racks painted in various shades of green, a colour that seems to be predominantly used in Myanmar. Even though the seats were old and the train was bumpy and rickety for parts of the way, I decided that this was exactly what gave it its charm.
Barely in my seat, the conductor decided that the train was ready to depart, and blew his whistle thirty minutes earlier than the scheduled departure time. I had an inward chuckle thinking how it was unusual to leave earlier than scheduled and how this was perhaps one of the reasons one was heavily advised against going by train. It was notoriously unpredictable. Great, I thought, this added to my sense of being on an adventure, although there is a possibility of being partly biased since I was already sitting on the train.
As I looked out of the windowless window through the wooden frame that framed my view on the scenery passing by, I watched how the sun had almost completely bade its farewell, leaving behind vibrant shades of red, purple, and pink across the skyline. The gradually darkening landscape of pitch black palm trees and gentle hills set against the departing sun made it hard to pull my gaze away from the fading world outside my cabin if it was not for the lively activity inside the train.
My eyes caught a cheerful looking monk chewing on betel nut, a local phenomena where people chew on tobacco that is blended with roasted coconut meat and a lemon pasty powder wrapped together in a green leaf. While I have yet to try it, a friend once shared with me that it will get you high, very high, he emphasised. Admittedly, the friendly monk did seem pretty bliss-ed out and even though we did not exchange words, his eyes smiled at me in acknowledgement as I hinted at wanting to take his picture.
A few rows behind me there was a group of teenage boys having spirited conversations with each other as they passed their time on the train puffing on their local handmade cigars and drinking from a shared bottle of beer. I enjoyed watching them and when they caught my eyes quietly spying on them they exchanged a friendly nod. One of the girls who was sitting next to me was selling a whole bag of rice crackers neatly stacked on top of each other. She also had a large flat basket of quail eggs and I assumed she was going to sell it at the next town. She smiled at me and proceeded to peel one of the tiny eggs and kindly offered it. Feeling bad that I could not offer anything in return, I suddenly remembered that my sister had left me with a bag of Dutch liquorish and offered it to the girl and the rest of the small group of people she was traveling with.
One of them was trying to be modest and politely declined to which I looked at him pretending to feel rejected and motioned how I was giving ‘their’ food a try so he should try mine too. Don’t ask how I managed to do that purely through facial expressions and hand gestures, but the rest of the group broke out in laughter and nodded to him that I was right. He let out an embarrassed smile and quickly accepted one. Poor guy, I thought, when I realised I had just forced him to eat this strange black foreign sticky stuff. Fortunately, they replied with ‘good’, ‘good’, and gave me a thumbs up, and I couldn’t help but laugh, partly out of relief.
When the train arrived in Bagan, the full moon that was accompanying us throughout the night had still kept her graceful appearance, and I thought how auspicious it was to arrive at the city of temples on a full moon. Even though it was just before 5AM the train station scene was already bustling and had a display of vendors selling food. The smell of spices filled the air before I had even gotten off the train and there were sights of unfamiliar food floating around on wide flat baskets on top of the crowns of their makers. A moving food service. Children approached me repeating a word in an almost mantra-like song and I understood later that they were asking for empty water bottles, since they could earn some pocket money by collecting them. Naturally, there was the classic driver scene where they were offering their taxi services to detraining passengers.
Nodding to one of the drivers and mentioning the name of the hotel, I didn’t have to say much else. He proceeded to take my little leather carry-on and motioned me to follow him to the back of the train station where all the cars were haphazardly parked. While it seemed chaotic at first; drivers, vendors, children running around, there seemed to be a strange logic and flow to how the people moved passed each other, in and out and in between small spaces. The scene felt like one big choreographed dance and the laughter, shouts, and distant radio music playing in the background was the melody to which this organically structured dance was being performed on.
Staying true to the exploratory nature of this trip, the place I stayed at avoided the popular hotel scene, which might have offered more comfort but compromised in the local aesthetics and charm. A quiet place at the peripherals of the archeological zone of Bagan, the resort consisted of a collection of simple unassuming wooden bungalows offering unobstructed vistas of the maroon brick ruins and stupas that seemed to spread out until the far reaches of the horizon. Keen to explore my new surroundings while it was still early morning sunlight, I ventured right back out in order to find a bicycle to rent.
Part of what gives Bagan its desert landscape, a strong contrast from other parts of the country, is that it is situated in Myanmar’s driest zone and gets very little rain. It is notorious for its hot temperatures during the day that can go up to almost forty degrees Celsius. Venturing out at dawn not only allows one to escape the hot rays of the morning sun but also the busses of tourist that congregate the classic temple sites.
Paddling across the sandy dunes and winding trails that weaved in between Bagan’s antiquated structures, I watched the soft golden sunlight gently fall upon the tips of the stupas and pagodas. Gracefully erect the temples and pagodas of Bagan stand, hinting back towards a history where for centuries the rulers of this town would build elegant pinnacle structures to celebrate their diversity of ethnicities and commemorate their pious devotion. I learned that there used to be more than ten thousand of these religious monuments between the late tenth and twelfth century but the Mogul invasion and a series of natural disasters eventually led to Bagan’s gradual decline from its once glorious era.
After my morning ride around some of Bagan’s main temples, the sun started to rise and the tourist busses started to arrive that it was a good time to return to my bungalow. As I rode back, I tried to imagine how it must have been in centuries past when Bagan was once the flourishing capital of the Kingdom of Pagan, the first Kingdom that unified the regions and would later constitute for modern day Myanmar. While the old town of Bagan may not be the vibrant city it used to be, the remainder of its over two thousand temples scattered across Bagan’s arid sandy grounds leave plenty of visual traces to stimulate the imagination of the magnificence of this city that was once home to almost two-hundred thousand people. There is something so mysterious and surreal about this ancient city that it is a place you will want to return back to more than once.
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