Dalama Adventures Tale of two corporate types ditching their jobs and traveling the world for 14 months... check out all photos, blogs & interesting tid bits at http://www.dalama.net

Looking out over the land here in Bagan, it's a surreal landscape... with thousands upon thousands of Buddhist monuments protruding up into the sky.  It's like having landed on the moon, it's that unusual.

A 100 degree Fahrenheit day, with next to 90 percent humidity, we opted to take a horse and carriage tour around all the mystical pagodas and stupas of Bagan.  Plugged up on immodium from last nights "Bagan Belly" tea that wasn't boiled enough to kill the bad bacteria, we're ready, and we sped off... At a very slow snails pace.  Our driver made some really strange noises, we think he must have been communicating with his horse, whose name is "A-Chu."  There are over 4000 monuments, and having a driver/guide for the day to help us navigate was great, as it can be a bit overwhelming with so many options.  Some of the earliest monuments date back to the mid 9th century, and were constructed over a period of 240 years.  From the pictures we've put up on the website, you can see two primary building types 1) stupas (zedi) and 2) temples or shrines (pahto).  The stupas are said to contain hairs or other Buddha relics like teeth, bones, etc, and can be easily identified by a "bulb-type" style, with many coated in gold or white.  Temples or pahto, in contrast, are more square-shaped buildings with beautiful arched passageways and often have four entrances.  There are also ones heavily influenced by Indian design which you may also recognize from some of the temple photos on the website in our India section.

Some were closed to climb, but several of them were were able to venture up the steep staircases.  They role above the ground like pyramids, and the steps got near to vertical and very narrow and steep in size.  One paya in particular, the Manuha Paya, houses gigantic sitting and reclining Buddhas in buildings that seem way too small for them.  This was apparently designed to express the King's displeasure with being held captive for years prior to his orders to have the temple built in 1059.  A bit overwhelming, we were accosted by touts at nearly every monument we visited.  They sold locally mad sand paintings, wood carvings, lacquer-ware, and T-shirts among other handicrafts.

The mercury in the thermometer continued to climb, and about 3:30 p.m. we were physically depleted.  Unable to eat, and only hydrating with water, I fell victim to the cramping of Bagan Belly, and so we went back to the New Park guest house hoping for some rest in a nice cool A/C room - only to find out the electricity in town was completely out - big rolling black outs.  Guess we would have splurged on a guest house with a pool.  Nights here don't really cool down too much, high 80's and low 90's still keeps you covered in a constant layer of stickiness.  I stomached a lime and ginger fresh juice made with bottled mineral water, which is my newest discovery for bad stomach home remedy.  It works like a charm, and I think the burning sensation from the ginger numbed my stomach nerves, and the lime cooled me down.  I'll need to remember this trick.