Words by Nathan James Thomas (Auckland, New Zealand).
Nathan James Thomas is originally from New Zealand, but has spent much of the last few years of his life travelling in Europe and Asia, and at the time of writing is based in Shanghai. He is the founder of IntrepidTimes.com, where he shares stories from his travels and interviews other writers.
Photos by Peter Steyn, GlobeRovers Magazine
The Shwesandaw Pagoda was built almost 1,000 years ago, by order of King Anawrahta, the founder of the Pagan Empire. It’s one of over 2,000 temples that still stand in the ancient city of Bagan, in the centre of Myanmar.
This particular pagoda is distinguished by its five terraces leading up to a cylindrical stupa, and is said to contain sacred hairs of the Gautama Buddha. More pertinently for the tourist however, it’s also tall, stable, and easily climbed.
We thought it would be an ideal spot to catch the famous Bagan sunrise, away from the gawping masses who crowd the more iconic temples. But first, we had to get there.
The 11th-century Shwesandaw Pagoda is one of over 2,000 temples that still stand in Myanmar’s ancient city of Bagan.
Bagan is fewer than 200 kilometres away from Mandalay, and yet the bus journey somehow manages to take an excruciating six hours. Fortunately, this provides ample opportunity for the traveller’s favourite pastime of staring out of the window, and beholding the country ‘with its pants down,’ going about daily life without bothering to impress or deceive the foreign visitor.
Buffalo lazily chew the grass in the never-ending fields which stretch along the road, punctuated only by busy villages and townships full of small, one storey wooden houses. Each village is home to its own pub, an enormous warehouse-like structure seemingly made of scrap metal, adorned with loud advertisements for Myanmar Beer and local whiskey.
Every now and then the bus would slow down and the driver’s assistant would lean out of the door and hand a fistful of crumpled notes to a casually dressed local standing in the street, indistinguishable to my eyes from any other villagers.
At one such ‘toll booth’ the mystery man hopped on the bus and started talking animatedly with the driver. Money changed hands, and the visitor gave the driver a small, black object that looked like a USB drive. The man hopped off, and the driver plugged the stick into the bus.
Immediately ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ by Britney Spears erupted from the speakers, and for the rest of the journey we were treated to a playlist of raunchy American 90’s hits that seemed eerily incongruous in the rustic landscape.
And then, finally, we arrived. The next day the alarms ripped us out of our sleep at the cruel hour of 4.30 am. We were tired and groggy, and a news alert on my phone said that Hillary Clinton – at that time in the midst of her campaign for president – had been diagnosed with pneumonia. No matter. Nothing was going to stop us from reaching Shwesandaw at dawn.
The mission was to find transport. We’d glimpsed a ‘Scooters for Rent’ sign the night before, and were astounded to find its owner patiently standing beside his bikes even at this early hour, as if he’d been waiting for us all night. We rented electric bikes for about US$5, clipped on our helmets, and sped off into the dark.
The main road led us into Old Bagan, where the majority of pagodas lie scattered. In the darkness we saw little, but later in the day we’d see pagodas everywhere we looked, at the top of hills, and between the trees. Some were small and frail, crumbling into the grassy surrounds, others immaculately restored, visible from every bend in the road, towering out of the distance.
Our map led us onto a small dirt road that finished abruptly in a paddock. The sun wasn’t yet visible, but the light of dawn was even now beginning to add distinction to the landscape. Time was running out. Two scooters, identical to ours, were already parked beside the road. We dismounted and, helmets under our arms, scurried out to find something to climb.
Behind us sat an enormous pagoda, looking dark and menacing in the gloom. We assumed that this was Shwesandaw, and set out to find a point of attack. Locals sat on the ground in front of the door at the foot of a two metre high statue of Buddha. A police car was parked nearby, and an officer was watching us warily as we tried to find a way to scale the towering pagoda.
We soon had to give it up as impossible. It was light now and across the field we saw another, mightier pagoda. Smaller pagodas were also scattered about, and from the tops of them we heard the merry voices of tourists, cameras at the ready. We strode across the grass, sights set on the big pagoda in the distance. Weeds and brambles ripped at our clothes, but finally we reached the foot of what really was the Shwesandaw Pagoda. We were going to make it.
A dizzyingly steep staircase stretched up to the top, already busy with about a dozen tourists, but not as oppressively crowded as we had feared. It was early September, and the sky, now visible, was grey and clouded. We began to climb. By the time we reached the top it was well and truly daylight, and a soft rain was beginning to fall. But it didn’t matter.
For 360 degrees, we could see pagodas emerging from the grassy landscape and hills, standing exactly where they had stood 1,000 years before, having endured dynasties and decline, earthquakes and war. The rain picked up, and gradually drove away the other visitors, until there was just a handful of us left standing there, gradually getting soaked but oblivious to the rain, shortly after dawn at the top of the Shwesandaw Pagoda.
Blog post and photos by Peter who has been travelling almost full-time since 2005 and has been to over 122 countries. He visited several countries, such as Japan, more than 20 times. Peter is Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of GlobeRovers Magazine, an independent travel magazine focused on intrepid destinations.