"A visit to an Ancient City"

Wednesday, Feb 5th, 2014 

I lost  counting how many times i gave up updating my blog because i can't seem to find , free hours just to sit, relax, enjoy my coffee and write whatever thoughts flowing in my mind or fashion update or my travel experiences like i used to But i decided to start rewriting my blog And public it Recently as 2014 gonna be exciting year full of trip plans and activities. 

My first destination in 2014 is one of my favourite ancient beautiful city in myanmar, called bagan. It's gonna be just a short business+pleasure trip but i know it's going to be so interesting as i'll have a tourist time learning the culture and different traditional handmade products for our newly launched brand called 'vestige'. 

6am in the morning, my first domestic flight

Nyaung Oo Airport 

We left yangon at 6:30am by air and arrived at 7:30am which is really amazing because we saved almost 9 hours of ride if we ever choose road to travel. Nyaung oo airport is close to our hotel 'ayeyar riverview resort' which is located in old bagan. Even though we reached early in the morning, our rooms were ready to check in. I just fall in love with interior detail design of the hotel since i saw it. the hotel is modernized with hotel pool, launch area, cafe and bar but also with traditional touch to it. It will give you a full feeling that you're at Bagan and let you wonder what this ancient city look like in the past time. the sunset of ayeyar wadi river view from hotel is amazing too.

Check in at Ayeyarriverview Hotel

Interior Traditional design and view from our room balcony

 After we freshened up and rest a while, we're ready for today visit to temples and pagodas. Let me introduce our interesting breakfast which consists of several small dishes with rice and it tasted great and filling. And everywhere you go, you will see the same dishes and setting at quite cheap price (around USD 3.5 per person) 

I bought some longyi fabric to wear when we visit to pagodas. Our first stop was at 'shwe si khong pagoda'. it's like we got the most knowledgeable guide in bagan with good English skill. We did asked so many
questions because everything seems so interesting to us and also of course it's long history behind. 

With Traditional Long gyi

Shwe Si Gone Pagoda

At Htee lo Min Lo 

At Htee Lo Min Lo 

                                       

Surprise! New outfit bought there 

                                        

Here just from my point of fashion view, wear something light so that your outfit won't be a burden because it's gonna be a long day but also think of how to protect the heat and sun burn and definitely wear something traditional or vintage which bagan is all about. Choose preferably brown, it'll definitely go well and create your perfect bagan style outfit. Mine is not really best outfit though Choosing suitable outfits according to the place is one of the fun parts of travelling, don't you think so? 

We visited 6 pagodas in total which all have it's own specialties and history for example arr nandar pagoda is famous for it's details architecture design, 'damanyangyi' is well known too because it's biggest in all bagan. 'Shwe san taw' which is almost centre of bagan is always last destination of a day to watch the beautiful sunset upon numbers of bagan pagodas from the top. 

  

Damanyangyi Pagoda and it's architectural design 

At Shwe San Taw, I'm scared of height but I couldn't loose a chance to take great view as background

Green & Brown View

Memorable Place 

Look how crazy it's, so many tourists been waiting for the sunset

Along the way, we visited a lot of small shops selling beautiful lacquer wares, art design and etc. at each pagoda. Bagan is worldwide famous for handmade quality lacquerware the long process of making make it's own price worthy. One quality lacquer wares take normally about over two months and during period of time, numbers of coating processes and leaving in dry room process are included. it's simply made out of bamboo sheets and upgraded into different shape, size, color and usable products. Did i bore you with details? I was just mesmerized by how interesting it is. 

Lacquer ware shop and my very first owned bracelet 

Finally sunset, i had my day to end with perfect sunset river view from hotel. I'm quite of a crazy sunset person and i love everything about sunset. 30 mins is just enough to let me enjoy one fine evening at bagan followed by long hot shower. 

It was a nice long chat about Myanmar and marketing ideas with our brand designer who from oversea over dinner. A wine just before sleep help me get a sound one. 

Next day, i felt sad while i packing things up because my return flight is in the early evening. I chose my yellow dress made by my sister  specially for bagan trip, simple and elegant dress i would say, i loved it at first wear. I'm not quite a fan of expensive wear just for the reason that i wouldn't probably wear it next time so it's not worth it but which doesn't mean I don't like designer branded dress at all. I'm inspired by them and change it into my type of dress with cheaper fabric. look at this dress which cost like myanmar 4000 kyats and i could easily wear it anywhere by just changing the accessories or even if i throw it away after one wear, it's still worth it. 

Enough about my dress, our next day tour didn't include anymore temples and pagodas. Our plan to explore how fabric are handmade at another town was disrupted because day trip to another town would consume a lot of time. we went out of town a bit and paid a visit to small local shops where we learnt how they make palm oil, small handicrafts made out of palm leaves and tasted toddy juice both sweet and strong one. 

Myanmar Pickle Tea Salad and hot tea (every visitor can eat for free) 

Tasting Toddy juice 

Me with beautiful handicrafts made out of rattan and ceramics 

we decided to stay in town and explore more about handmade products and went nyaung oo market where we can get fabric and cheap local products but surprisingly it come to my disappointment that the fabric are not cheap at all and almost same as yangon prices. But at least our designer was so excited taking pictures of everything he saw at the market. 

The only group photo we took before I went back to Yangon alone

Now it was time to say goodbye to amazing Bagan and i'll definitely come back again and enjoy our ancient city proudly. One thing that disppointed me is 2hours return flight delay apart from that, another enjoyable trip's successfully done. 

With love 

*Astraea* 

P.S Sorry for low resolution photos :(