Mahagandayon Monastery Amaputra

We reached there early so we were able to see the kitchens where food was being prepared, there were many volunteers who were helping to prepare and serve the food for the monks.Then we waited for the monks to arrive for their lunch.

 

 
   The monks queued in two lines and by this time masses of tourists had gathered all jostling for the best view to watch the monks have their lunch. Some of the monks were very young in their robes with their bowls; this place attracts most tourists; that was the largest congregation of tourists, I have seen so far and I felt it was very intrusive to watch the monks eat so we decided to leave. 


 

      Innwa (Ava)
 
The ancient city of Innwa was the capital of the Burmese kingdom for nearly 400 years until power shifted to Amarapura in 1841. We arrived at the local jetty and we boarded on a small boat across the river to Innwa. There are still horse-carts used for public transportation within town to explore the dusty sandy paths scattered amongst this dry and arid landscape to numerous crumbling zedi and other reminders of a former royal city including the brick and stucco monastery of Aungmye Bonzan, built in 1818. We took the ride to see the Innwa and I got the feeling of how travelling must have been about 100 years ago. After this bumpy ride, I do appreciate the modern transportation but it was still fun to horse cart. The Nanmyin Leaning Tower is sadly the only remains of the palace and although you can't enter, it still stands proudly overlooking the countryside and makes for great photos. Bagaya Monastery has a teak structure with an unusual pagoda tower and nice wood carvings. We saw sunflower, banana plantations, people getting on with their lives in this small village and little children on the tree playing which was nice; I really enjoyed my visit to Innwa. Then we were on our way to Bagan, we passed Dragon fruit plantations and I took some pictures as I had never seen the dragon fruit tree before.              

     Mount Popa Taungkalat,
 
The volcanic cone of Mount popa is 737 meters above sea level and there is staircase of 777steps to reach the top. It takes about 15 minutes to get from Mt. Popa to Taung Kalat. We stopped here on the way to Bagan, Fatty parked at a good spot so we could see Mount Popa from a distance and I saw a beautiful temple sitting atop the volcanic mountain. There is a village at the bottom and a few shrines of the nat. The Monkeys are in full control and they run all over the place, there are endless stalls of tourist souvenirs; I had the best experience looking at Mt Popa from a distance.

They stopped at Jaggery making stalls but I just wanted to go to Bagan quickly, we reached Bagan early evening and they dropped me at the Ruby True Hotel, I said good bye to Pho se and Fatty and thanked them for looking after me. They did an excellent job of taking me to many places in a short time and no way I would have been able to do these many places without the taxi. Also the Ac car was a much better option to cope with the sweltering heat in March.