The word ‘culture’ derives from cultivating, as in cultivating the earth: the act of bringing food out of the soil through hard work. With time, the word came to mean more than that – it came to represent the very qualities that set us apart as a species. The link between agriculture and culture is [...]
A common phenomenon when traveling is craving food that you had in the country you just left. We are certainly not an exception. For months, we munched on Chana Masalas, Raitas, Chapatis and Papadams while longingly talking about Thai fish cakes and Vietnamese Pho. So it was no surprise that we found ourselves in Bagan’s [...]
With over 4,000 to choose from, it’s not terribly difficult to find a favorite stupa in Bagan. Some are huge while some are no taller than me (that’s a whopping 5′ 4”). Most are red brick ruins in varying degrees of decay, but some have been rebuilt and painted a blinding white or gold leafed [...]
We recently spoke to a local trishaw driver that confirmed our suspicions: most visitors to Myanmar come on an organized tour. The other night, we had the misfortune of having our cozy little temple-top sunset viewing session invaded by a bus full of Japanese tourists. They swarmed our magical and secluded spot, and we actually [...]
I married an older man. I’m OK with that – except when it bores me. Let me explain. Yesterday’s temple hopping brought us to a stupa where Buddha washing was going on. We’d heard about this phenomenon before. If you know the day of the week you’re born, you find the statue dedicated to that [...]
Because the Bagan area is so flat, the best views are had up high – and the higher the better. In search of that perfect picture Martin and I scrambled, ducked, climbed and squeezed our way through a number of temples. It wasn’t exactly Indiana Jones-style, but it was close. Much like Angkor Wat was [...]
Poor countries often take a different approach to making money off their world-famous sites, at least compared to their richer counterparts. In Cambodia, for example, the entrance fee for the Angkor Wat complex goes to a petrol company. Here on the plain of Bagan, this colossus stands out as an example of mismanaging a tourism [...]
This is Bagan: more than four thousand four hundred temples, stupas and monasteries that crowd a relatively small patch of land along the Irrawaddy river. Most of it dates back to an era 1,000 to 800 years ago, when kings ruled the land during a golden age of architectural achievement. Eventually, the Mongol-Chinese Emperor Kublai [...]
If you’re independent travelers, like ourselves, you will have three choices for exploring Bagan. The first is on foot – which is just dumb. The valley is huge – 42 square kilometers to be exact, making the other two options, horse-cart or bicycle, much better options. We chose the horse cart tour for our first [...]
You know the saying, “to fly by the seat of your pants?” Well, that's been our philosophy for most of our adult lives – before and after meeting, falling in love and marrying. We're now taking that idea on an extended round-the-world trip. Follow us as we share the good, the bad and the downright nasty of life on the road.
