That first night in Bagan, I woke up to a weight at the end of my bed. My first thought was of Laurie waking me up for our rendezvous with the sunrise. When I felt the weight slipping under the cover I realized I was either dreaming or experiencing something closer to a ghost encounter.
In a city as ancient as Bagan, it is easy to imagine coexisting with spirits and superstitions. But exhaustion won out fear, and the only thing I could muster was a request to the spirit/bad dream to go away. When the real Laurie woke me up at 4:45 AM, I was still exhausted from a night too short. But even with disrupted sleep, sunrise over Bagan is not something you miss.
We rented electric motorbikes from our hotel for 1,500 kyat each ($1.10 U.S.). We rode in the dark to Thitsarwadi temple, one of the many ancient temples near our hotel. It was pretty easy to find with instruction from our guide. Go past the Dhammayazika temple (the big golden pagoda was hard to miss), turn on a small road, then when you see a small sign, turn off to a dirt road around the bend on the right. It took us about 15 minutes to get there.
The temple was small unlike the Shwesandaw, the Sunset pagoda we were at the day before. We climbed up the steep steps and found we were not alone. Several early birds with heavy-duty professional cameras around their necks were already sitting on the edges of the brick overhang. They were waiting the perfect moment to capture the sunrise.
Armed with our mighty iPhones we stood in a scene reminiscing of the movie ‘City of Angels’. We were like the angels at the beach listening to the tinking of the bells as the sun rose. It was – and I don’t use this word often – magical.
Soon the morning ray peeled open the cloak of darkness and bathed the valley around us with warm orange light, revealing red brick temple tops and its green surrounding. Watching it unfold to the soundtrack of Gymnopedies was peace epitomized. It is human nature to want to find our place in the chaos of life and meaning in random encounters. And I wish that I could say something more meaningful for having witnessed the beautiful scenery, but there really are no words to replace the experience of having been there.
