Bagan
Bagan has some very large and beautiful temples and pagodas such as the Ananda temple and Shwe Zigon Zedi. pagoda as well as over 2000 smaller pagodas making the landscape look like it is from another planet.

During my visit the Ananda festival was being held near the Ananda temple. People from over 20 surrounding villages and some of the big cities came to sell and buy goods. From the villages they came by ox carts and stayed in camps setup around town. You get a glimpse into what some of the rural life is like.
The best way to get around is by horse cart. They can take you to the major attractions where all the big luxury coaches stop at, as well as some of the more secluded lesser known temples where you can enjoy a sunrise, sunset or just the peace and quite looking at surrounding landscape dotted with pagodas and temples.
Monk statues leading to a pagoda on the top of a hill.
Bamboo scaffolding was being built to allow the pagoda to be re-gilded with gold.
A traffic jam at the gates to the old town of Bagan.
The next temple was across the Ayeyarwaddy river...
...and up on a mountain
The location of the temple was said to be determined by a white elephant carrying hairs of the last Buddha. Where the elephant stopped they would build the pagoda.

The Ayeyarwaddy River and Bagan in the distance.
Sunrise as seen from a small temple.
As the sun rose, the mist cleared.
Many pagodas started to appear.
After sunrise a sea of pagodas could be clearly seen.
The temple were we watched the sunrise.
A speciality for Bagan. A sampling of different curries and rice.
you only paid for the curries you ate. Not really a problem since a large meal for 3 cost about two dollars.
One of the tallest temples in the area about 1000 years old.
Our horse cart driver taking a rest. He met us at 5:30am to catch the sunrise.
On the dirt roads between the temples there were many ox carts with people going to and from the Ananda festival.
One of the smaller temples.
This man showed us around the temple.
A fairly common style of Buddha image for the area.
The stairs down were through the lower right passage. They were quite narrow. The passage to the left went around the pagoda.
Entrance to the tallest pagoda.
The temples were designed with a lot of attention to the natural lighting.

Many temples had paintings on the walls.
The most massive temple in the area.
Our guide. There were four children that wanted to guide us through the temple so we had to draw straws to see who would guide us.
This temple was built by a rather nasty king who used allot of slaves to build it. Many died. Unlike the other temples it was rather stark and gloomy.
The Ananda festival.
The Ananda temple is in the background.
You could buy travel trunks...
...to saws and machetes.
This was a crispy snack in a soft toffee like mixture. I was not sure what the crispy bits were but it was quite tasty.
In front the root vegetables were pealed and eaten like a fruit. However, if you ate them with something sweet it would form a poison in your stomach.

One of the camps for the villagers attending the festival.

A buffet lunch of traditional Myanmar food. When travelling to Myanmar, make sure you start with cloths that have some extra room in them.
A temple made of teak.
Some of the woodwork was quite intricate.
A hopeful postcard sales person.
Not so happy with a no sale.
Inside the temple the woodwork was quite detailed too. This is one of the ceilings.
The room of one of the young monks.
Outside there was another camp for villagers in town for the Ananda festival.
The fare on this river boat was $3500 for a two day trip to Mandalay. I doubt you would see much of the Myanmar culture and daily life on this boat.
About as close as I would ever likely be to going on this boat.
The fare on these boats as more reasonable.
Heading off to some lesser known temples.
Inside these there were painting from the 11th century AD.
Some villagers heading home.

Some very interesting temples not on the main tourist circuit.
The horse cart always patiently waiting.
Here a larger Buddha image was built over a smaller one. They kept a view of the smaller one though.
Back to another smaller temple to watch the sunset.
It was a very pleasant and interesting day in Bagan.