After a nice breakfast with some fruit juice, I rented a bicycle and headed out to explore the ancient capital city of Bagan, which was flourishing around 800 years ago.
Nearly the first place I went was a little used dirt path and it was difficult to ride my single speed bike here. The trick is to go as fast as possible to get through any sand. Bagan has somewhere around 3000 standing pagodas right now and I visited some of them today. Some local kids helped guide me through one, up some stairs to the roof for a view. They are all made out of brick, many are filled with paintings inside, and a lot have stairs and dark passageways that are fun to explore.
It is interesting to see all the arches used throughout all the structures. And it is amazing to look out across the plain and see these ancient remains go on forever.
Next I visited a cave and some other pagodas. I realized I wish I had shoes on instead of flip flops when riding or walking through the wild areas.
After about two hours I noticed I had a flat tire. The bike would still ride, but slower. After a while I found a place to repair it. The tube looked very old with 40 or 50 old patches. The man found at least 4 new holes to fix and he put on 4 to 7 new patches. He charged me 1000 kyat ($0.83).
After a break, I took my repaired bike out some more in the afternoon, but it can get exhausting trying to see everything here.