Yesterday I took a bus from Pyin Oo Lwin to Bagan. Also on the bus were two fellow travelers from my Pyin Oo Lwin hotel: Nicole, from Italy, and Marc, from Australia. Marc took the initiative to get us to commit to meeting early this morning so we could bike to the temples to see the sunrise.

Bagan is an immense site of archeological ruins consisting of over 2000 Buddhist temples, pagodas and stupas spread over a wide plain. Most of the temples date from the 11th to 13th centuries. In terms of size and historical importance, it is comparable to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat.

My companions and I decided to view the sunrise from the heights of the Shwesandaw Pagoda. We climbed up as high as we were allowed and waited for the sun’s first rays to begin creeping over the horizon. The sky soon filled with hot air balloons carrying tourists viewing the plain from an even higher vantage point.

After a few hours of admiring the views and taking photos, we biked off to the nearby town of Old Bagan, where we had breakfast.