In the shadow of the gold gilded pagodas there is a small village.
It was set up for a wedding when we visited.
They raise pigs.
And grow cotton which they spin on a manual spinning wheel.
This is the kitchen, which is shared by a large family.
They cook directly on an open wood fire.
Using a small supply of cookware.
The most solid structure in the village is the small health clinic.
This Buddha had a shawl and wasn’t completely covered with gold.
Surrounding it was hundreds of tiny representations of Buddha.
The building shape on the outside was pretty cool.
Here the elephant-birds were guardians of the temple.
And these mammals, except for the duck on the bottom.
I guess this is a goose or another duck.
Many monks live in the monastery in this cave.
These are their beds. They actually seemed out of place, the rest of the furniture was dated but kind of looked like you could get it at Value Village.
We didn’t spend much time here because it was a bit weird to be wandering around someone else’s home while they weren’t there.
This temple was obvious from everywhere because it is white.
It was less obvious from the front on a cloudy day.
Originally all of the temples were probably painted white, which may mean the carvings were even harder to make out then than they are now.
Other than being white this temple was pretty boring.
This is the biggest, by area, temple in Bagan.
The guardians have a bit of a buck tooth look to them.
This one has a little lmore definition in its teeth.
There were a few paintings still present. You can see where the plaster fell off. That was due to the earthquake in the 70s.
There were two Buddha sitting, but only their faces were gold.
From a distance the temple looked reallly cool.
It had a slightly different colour as the sun set.
When the sun actually snuck through the clouds it lit up quite brightly.
