The Ayeyarwaddy River at Bagan just after dawn

We are rudely awoken at 2am and told we are at Bagan and we must get off the bus.  Its only the tourists who are asked to get off and we do question that its 2am but we are told we are at the “new bus station” and our bags are unloaded and that’s that.  It appears we have been dropped outside the train station and funnily enough there are some taxi drivers waiting there ready to charge us an exorbitant fee to travel the 9km into town.  They also conveniently know a guest house which has beds for USD 25 where we can sleep tonight.

The Italian couple seem to want to haggle the price and get a cab, the French girl is, understandably, annoyed and is quite vocal is showing this.  Andy is also quite vocal - we know we have been scammed and its annoying!  After one annoyed taxi driver storms off, another more reasonable one agrees to negotiate.  We get the fare down from 5000 Kyat each to 2000 so agree to go as the Italian couple want to and the taxi won’t take them alone for that price.  We nearly slept at the train station though, as did the French girl. 

During the ride, we pass the “tourist gate” into town where we are made to pay 20 USD to get a pass into Bagan.  We knew we had to pay a one-off fee to see the pagodas but not to enter Nyaung U, the area in which we are staying.  Anyway, it appears to be a legitimate check point and fee so we pay up and arrive in town after maybes 4-5km at the most.  We are luckily enough to be able to drop our bags at our guest house but can’t check in until 8 or 9am.  Its now 2.30am.  The others can’t drop their bags so have to carry them.

On the drive into town we saw a cafe open so all five of us head there.  Its packed full of local lads and is showing live Carling Cup football - Chelsea v Liverpool - so we settle in with coffee to watch … every cloud and all that!  We watch the game which goes into extra time and Chelsea win 1-0.  We sit a bit longer until the cafe looks as though its getting busy for breakfast at 5.30-6am.  We’re all exhausted.  The two Italians head off on a local bus to their hotel which is in New Bagan and we go to another cafe for breakfast of samosa and doughnut then go for a wander as we still can’t check in to our hotel - they have now said about 9.30am.  We head down to the river front just after dawn and its beautiful which is where this pic is taken. We head back to the hotel, finally check-in and sleep until about 1pm.  

We wake groggily and explore locally.  We meet two French guys who met when we did the Thailand, Myanmar boarder crossing so chat a bit.  They are planning on taking a boat to Mandalay, as are we, but they tell us that the government boat, which we want to take, is a two day one night affair with no beds and only runs on Mondays and Thursdays - its Wednesday today so perhaps we have to think again.  

Its been our worst journey experience so far.  We’re not that bothered about being dropped off at 2am out of town - just that they should have told us the truth when we booked and not just dropped us in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.  Unfortunately, it makes us wary about onwards travel plans in Myanmar.