Day 329: Too many temples 2

The alarm went off at 5am and I got myself ready, hopped on my bike and headed out to the temples for sunrise. As I approached the turn to the Shwesandaw Pagoda, I saw our 'guide' from yesterday afternoon standing beside the road. He recognised me and called out for me to follow him to another temple. When we got there, he led me up some internal stairs and onto the roof, where a trio of Japanese and two Irish girls were already waiting for the sun to make its appearance. The soft pre-dawn light was enough to light up the surrounding temples and early-morning mist evocatively, however, before I could start taking pictures I had to wait until the condensation had cleared from my air-conditioning-cooled camera.

A little later, when it seemed to me that I had exhausted the photographic possibilities on offer, I climbed back down and rode over to the Shwesandaw Pagoda. As I made my way back to the main road, I spotted two small, dark shapes sitting on the telegraph wires. I stopped to get a better look and realised that they were Little Owls – one of which quickly flew off, but the other stayed still while I took some photos. When I arrived at the pagoda, a stream of tourists was leaving, which meant that I had the temple's top terrace almost to myself. Then, when the sun got high enough that the lovely golden dawn light had faded, I headed back to the hotel, stopping off at another small temple complex on the way. As usual, I was joined by a local guy who showed me around and into the temples, which had some lovely old murals inside, and then offered to show me 'his' paintings. 

After breakfast at the hotel, we all went out to check out some more temples, starting with the 12^th-century Dhammayangyi Temple. The largest temple in Bagan, it features a series of high-ceilinged internal passageways, where colonies of bats chittered and screeched. Many of the passages had large murals on them, featuring enormous reclining Buddhas and elaborately adorned elephants. 

On our way to our next temples, we had to ride through a lot of soft sand, and at one point, the front wheel of my bike suddenly skewed to the right, where the road was bounded by a rough stone outcrop. Our momentum dragged my leg along the rock and as I fought to bring the bike under control, I looked back to check on Zoe. However, I had to look down to find her, as she had somehow managed to slide off and was hanging on grimly, virtually underneath it. We quickly came to a halt and when I got her up, she was mostly unhurt but rather shaken up, while I had a pretty decent scrape down the front of my right shin.

We made it to a temple soon after and all climbed some very narrow stairs to the top, where we sat on a very narrow ledge and took in the view. It was then a short ride to the main road, where I realised that we had actually come back to somewhere we visited yesterday – which wasn't far from the town, so we decided to head back there for lunch. To mix things up a little, we decided to eat at the restaurant next to Black Rose, but although the food was pretty good, the beer wasn't cold enough, so we won't be back. While we ate, we heard some thumping dance music approaching and soon after, two trucks bearing a collection of enormous speakers and dancing locals passed by the restaurant, music blaring. Apparently they were getting people all fired up for a big local festival that was due to take place tomorrow morning. 

Afterwards, we went back to the hotel for a rest before heading back out to the temples for sunset. This time we decided to join the crowds on the Shwesandaw Pagoda. As we settled in to wait for the sun to set, a large group of local students arrived and began practising their English on us. They were particularly taken with the girls and eventually formed rapt semicircles around them, keeping up a steady barrage of questions, and then saying 'Awww, yeah' as the girls replied. Meanwhile, Kate and I chatted to David, a lanky American who has been teaching English in Nagoya for the past eight years. 

All afternoon, Kate and I had been watching with some distress the rapid downward movement of the battery indicators on our bikes and as went through the little village close to our town they began to lose power. Not long after, they gave up altogether. Kate figured out how to use the pedals to give her bike short bursts of power and limped on, but I couldn't get the hang of mine and figured they must be broken, and Zoe and I got off and pushed our bike up the hill. When we got to the top, we hopped back on and coasted down the other side - and then I figured out how to use the pedals properly and we limped on after the others.

We went to Black Rose for dinner and as if to further highlight its dominion over its neighbour, the beer, when it arrived, was so cold that it had ice in it – mmmmm, beer slushie. After dinner, I got another ebike for tomorrow and then ferried the girls and Kate back to the hotel.