Lady selling fruit at the bus station

This morning we spend a bit of time looking into Bagan and book a hotel.  As we’re arriving at 4am we email them and ask for an early check-in - fingers crossed.  It begins to get hot in the late morning/early afternoon and we find a beautiful little park down by the river where we sit for a while reading and writing diaries.  Lots of young courting locals are there too and they seems bemused or amused by us saying Mingalabar (hello) and giggling to themselves.

At around 4.30pm we make our way to the bus station using the local pick-ups again with two German speaking Italians from our guest house.  The man running the guest house is quite a character and is desperate to take us in his rickshaw taxi but its much more expensive so we refuse.  After a very crowded journey with our big bags and lots of people in the pick-up, we arrive, check-in, and sit and wait.  Much to our amusement the hotel owner rocks up on a motorbike with a French girl (also staying at our guest house) on the back waving madly like he's known us for years.  We all get on the bus.  We’re the only five westerners and its a normal coach, not a sleeper bus as we thought, but its comfortable enough and not too packed so we settle in for the ride.  We stop en route for dinner then try to get some sleep.