Myanmar - Beautiful Bagan (Part 3)

Our third and final day was extra special as we had booked a hot air balloon ride over Bagan with Oriental Ballooning.

Up, up and away

There are currently 3 companies that offer hot air balloon rides over Bagan; Balloons over Bagan, Oriental Ballooning, Golden Eagle, reassuringly owned and run by Brits and Swiss. With a maximum of 21 balloons that can fly on any one day we had booked ahead as the places seemed to be selling out around a week in advance. That said, demand may now be much higher since the ban on climbing most of the temples was announced.

Big balloons!

Myanmar - Beautiful Bagan (Part 2)

For our second day we picked up another e-bike (blue this time!) and headed off down the main road connecting Nyuang-U with Old Bagan to see a few of the temples on this route before heading towards New Bagan to discover the temples of the Myinkaba area. 

Blue bike day!

We dragged ourselves out of bed for another sunrise and headed to Budeli, one of the temples that can be climbed from the outside, and perched ourselves very precariously on one of the very tiny steps to watch the sunrise over Bagan. 

Myanmar - Beautiful Bagan (Part 1)

We had decided to travel from Mandalay down to the infamous Bagan by boat. 12 hours floating down the river, sitting back in the sunshine and watching the world go by, we enjoyed seeing both sunrise and sunset on the water.

Sunrise on the river

It was a wonderfully peaceful journey, with views of the farmers, small villages and fishermen quietly going about their daily lives on the river banks.