Today the ship was in the harbor at Thilawa, Rangoon, Myanmar but I spent the night at the Bagan Lodge in Bagan Myanmar. It was the second day of my 2 day, 1 night tour called "Best of Bagan Temples". We left the hotel at 8 AM and our first stop was at the Nyaung oo Local Fresh Produce Market at 8:30 AM. I have been to these markets before so it was no surprise. The local go to these markets to get their meat and produce. The market has all kinds of produce, rice and meat. The meat I saw was chicken and fish and it was out in the open with no ice and the temperature before the end of the day would be near 100 degrees. You would see the dozens of fly's on the meat. The guide said that they sold the meat before the end of the day and that his mother would often go in the late afternoon and buy a chicken for half price. We left the market at about 9 AM and visited the Ananda Temple where we arrived at about 9:30 AM. We spent about an hour in the temple and saw some gold buddhas. It is considered to be one of the finest, largest, best preserved and most revered of the Bagan temples. At the entrance we took a tour of the many temples using a pony cart which started at 10:30 AM. On the pony cart ride we saw many of the over 2,000 temples located in Bagan. At about 11:15 AM the pony cart ride ended at The Shwe San Daw Pagoda where we could walk to the top to view the temples in the area. Our next stop was at the Salamni Guphaya Temple built in 1183 AD by the King Napapatis. Our next stop was at the Dhammayagyi Temple. It is the largest temple in Bagan. It was built by King Narathu (1163-1165) AD. It was built in three years. At 12:30 PM we had lunch at the Thiripitsaya Sanctuary Resort. At about 2 PM we arrived at the Gubyaukgyi Temple, a 13th century Temple with its wall paintings depicting scenes from the life stories of the Buddha. Our next stop was at a local Lacquerware workshop. The guide told us how they make lacquerware and we saw and could shop for the many beautiful pieces of art made from lacquerware. Before going to the airport we had a bonus stop at a place where some of the local people live. Our plane left the airport at 5 PM and arrived in Yangon at about 6:20 PM. The tour had an option to visit the Shwedagon Pagoda at Yangon as an add on but I did not sign up so I got on a different bus and headed back to the ship. The traffic was bad. We were at a time when the people were leaving work. We saw loaded buses and trucks loaded with people leaving work for home I got back to the Ship at 8:30 PM. It was a great tour. 19 people from the ship went with me and I got to know some additional people.
That evening the movie "The Imitation Game" was showen in the Queen's Lounge. I wanted to see it because it was about a World War II, mathematician Alan Turing who cracked the German enigma code with the help from fellow Mathematicians.
Below are some pictures from or second day in Myanmar.
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