[TRAVELS] Bulethi Temple @ Bagan, Burma
After an eight hours ride from Yangon, we arrived in Bagan bus terminal at 5:30am on my birthday yesterday morning and someone from Skyview Hotel picked us up to send us to our hotel. We rest for about 15 minutes at the reception area since the rooms were fully booked and we could not check in early. The same driver who picked us up from the bus terminal came to fetch us to a place to catch the sunrise. He charged us 15,000 kyats for the drive from our hotel to the sunrise place and back after watching the sunrise.
Bulethi Temple
Bagan
Sneak preview of the sunrise
I was so tired from the eight hours bus ride that I forgot to take a photo of this small temple that I climbed on to catch the sunrise. It was an easy climb up to the highest level of the temple although the stairs are steep. Since I am quite scared of heights, I cannot say the same when going down after sunrise though. I took my time to slowly come down after staying at the top for one and a half hours appreciating the view. The climb down is definitely not intensive since I have done steeper climbs at Stawamus Chief and Kawah Ijen during the day and night respectively but it may take some time for the arcrophobic to get used to it.
P/S: You have to wear skirts or pants covering your skin until your ankle area and remove your footwear when stepping foot on any temples or pagoda at Burma so one of the most crucial items to bring to Myanmar is wet wipes so that you will not dirty your shoes after your feet gets dirty from walking barefoot.
Sunrise in details
Since there are more than 2000 temples in the capital city of the ancient Burmese kingdom, being on top of the Bulethi temple provided me with one of the most glorious sunrise views I have ever seen in my life. This is the best birthday present one could ask for! I have been to Ang Kor Wat to catch the sunrise during my birthday last year but it is overly populated and very touristy. Although tourists are starting to go to Myanmar for vacations, there are way lesser people browsing through the temples at Bagan than at Siem Reap. The climb up to Bulethi Temple is comparable to my trip to Kawah Ijen for sunrise as I did not have sufficient sleep the night before and had to work my way for a beautiful view of the sun rising. I heard that Shwesandaw Pagoda has a much clearer and better view of sunrise but we did not have to pay a single cent on entrance fee climbing the Bulethi Temple. My travel companion, Ling Ling kept asking where is the sunrise when we only saw orange, pink, yellow and purple hues in the sky as depicted in the first picture. Once we saw the tip of the hot air ballons surfacing as seen in the third picture, it immediately took her attention away! Shown in the forth picture, the hot air balloon started to fly one by one and as a result, swamps of birds also flew across the sky at the same time as evident from the fifth picture. Keep scrolling down my entry and you will be able to see the sun rising bit by bit and the hot air balloons flying across it one by one. It is such a pity that I do not have better camera lenses to capture the different colours of daybreak and the hot air balloons. After catching the magnificent sunrise, we walked around the top of the temple and saw an artist selling paintings done by him and his teacher for USD$15 and USD$20 respectively. Unfortunately, my house does not have enough space or I would have purchased the sunrise painting, which is absolutely gorgeous! After climbing down the temple, there were ladies selling Burmese traditional clothings and sets of postcards consisting of 10 postcards each. I would recommend you not to buy it as they are selling it at 4,000 kyats for a set of postcards when you can get it at either 1,000 to 3,000 kyats in other temples you will be visiting later.
Will end off this entry with a lovely video of this moment!
My time in Bagan will be up tomorrow morning but I hope to come back again to see the sunrise at the peak of another temple.
*swisscheese
