Day 36, February 23

There really weren’t many people, about ten at most. The second floor of the temple, which also served as an observation deck, was wide, and we walked around it. The view was very beautiful. It was getting light, and everyone was waiting for the sun to appear.

Early in the morning, there is always a special atmosphere. I really love early mornings, it’s just a pity that it’s always so hard to make myself get up to catch that moment. The atmosphere was extraordinary; the soft sunlight made everything feel even more magical. Bagan at sunrise is a completely different Bagan from the one we saw yesterday.

After sunrise, we continued our journey through the temples. We still had a couple of hours before the sun would start scorching everything around us again.

Inside many temples, beautiful wall paintings have been preserved. Today we came across some very nice temples, almost all different both inside and out, and in shape and in atmosphere.

In one of the temples, Volchy saw Buddha being gilded with gold leaf.

We sat down near one of the temples to drink coffee and eat cookies. This temple is the largest. From the outside it looked completely awkward — like a pile of bricks, but inside we liked it the most. It resembled a fort, with many corridors, like a labyrinth. Bats were flying under the ceiling.

The most popular temple, Ananda, turned out to be the worst. There were crowds of tourists there, very noisy, like at a bazaar. Inside, there was nothing special, and you can’t even go up to the top. Although just at the moment we were there, some apparently important monk arrived, and there was a performance in his honor — music and a dancing elephant.

Volchiy had long wanted to teach me how to ride the wonder bike. We chose a dirt road with less traffic. I was scared, but in time I did manage to ride :) It’s not difficult at all; lots of girls ride bikes like these here, it’s just that I’m a coward.

Then we were riding along the road — Volchiy was steering, but I was sitting in front. Then I got brave and even started to pedal harder, and Volchiy just supported me and kept me safe. So we kept riding, once again to watch the sunset.

As yesterday, we arrived last; everyone had already settled in and was waiting…. We climbed to the very top, from where everything was perfectly visible.

After sunset, Wolf said he wanted to ride that wonderful bicycle some more (by the way, they had charged it for us during the day) through the desert. And we headed deeper in, wherever our eyes led us. By chance, we found a group of very beautiful ancient temples. They were all leaning to one side; it was clear they were very old and had never been restored, but that only made them even more beautiful.

We wandered around a bit, but it was getting dark fast and we rushed on. Soon our path turned into a mound of sand and some kind of ravine. Volchiy could barely drag the bike through the sand. So we kept walking and walking, hoping the situation would improve, but it only got worse. The ravine grew deeper, and there was more and more sand. We decided to turn back.

And that was the end of our journey — safe and sound, we made it out onto the paved road when it was already completely dark.

Today Bagan felt somehow stronger, different, as if everything had fallen into place and all the empty spaces in my head had been filled. Maybe you need to meet both sunrise and sunset to fully immerse yourself in the atmosphere of this place and feel it to the very end. I understood that if we had only one day here, our final impression of this place would be completely incomplete. You need to spend at least two, and preferably three days here to truly absorb and fully experience Bagan.