A scam at the 'school' and a trip around New Bagan and Myinkaba - Day 3

People i met here who contributed to, and improved my trip: Julia (Russia)

Another fantastic rooftop breakfast was wolfed down in the morning, and its one of the things i will miss most about Myanmar when we leave. The breakfasts that are included in your room price always motivate you to get up and give you a great start to every day. Having consulted our map of Bagan, it was decided that the day would be spent looking at Temples in and around New Bagan and Myinkaba.The first stop was on the road down to New Bagan at Alo Taw Phi Paya, where a monk was keen to take our photos, which was a pleasant role reversal from me normally wanting to take theirs! The temple itself contained some excellent frescoes and there were plenty of other fantastic temples in the vicinity including unnamed temples 369, 371, 378, 200, 2330, 386 and the photogenic Htilominlo in the background. The only problem we encountered in this area were the sharp thorns all over the floor, which kept lodging into our feet, as you have to remove your shoes and socks to be able to walk around any of the temples. Our feet certainly took a battering over these 4 days and i praise the person who invented footwear!

Next on our route were Ywa Haung Gyi Temple, Mingalazedi, 710, Gubyaukgyi, 1321, 644, Manuha Paya, Adeyadana Pahto, Nagayon, which was built in the 11th century by King Kyansittha, Lay Myet Hna Pagoda, Somingyi Kyaung and Sein Yet, before we stopped in New Bagan for a very late lunch. The sun had been beating down on us for hours and mixed with the exhaustion of riding the bikes and viewing the temples had come the added frustration of trying to deal with the touts at every stop along the way. Unlike the temples of Angkor, where sellers can't enter the Temples, at Bagan there are no such restrictions and basically anything goes. The cleverer salesmen know which are the remoter temples and go to these posing as someone who is there to point you in the right direction around the temple and will normally point you to the place where his paintings are layed out! I can't blame them for trying to earn a living, but to be followed from pretty much the second you leave your hotel to the second you return is a thoroughly draining experience and was slowly but surely ruining my experience of the whole area.

The late afternoon was spent cycling between and viewing the Temples 1126, Dhamma Ya Zika, a very ornate gold leafed giant temple, with an unusual 5 sided shape and pretty surrounding grounds, Thit Sa Mandaing, Sutaung Pyait Monastario, 572 and 801. As it had been another long long day, we both agreed that we would give the sunset a miss and go and lie in our air con room and freshen up, as we had our pre arranged meeting at the school with the headmaster.

Around 6.30pm we cycled down to meet Sein Thaung, the guy who claimed to be the headmaster of a private school, where he taught 40 children English and Maths. Upon arrival he said that we could go and meet the children and i was a little surprised that only 4 or 5 children were there with his daughter and none of them seemed particularly surprised or bothered that we were there. Rather than introduce us and let us talk and teach the kids, he dragged us away into the main section of his house - the 'school' was actually just a room in his house. He sat us down, brought us some Chinese tea and then got his wife to come and paint Thanaka on Julia's face - a white powder used by the Burmese to protect against sun burn and also as a beauty product for the skin. Saying that Sein taught English, he knew very few words and just kept repeating the same lines about the age of his children, the 2 subjects they learnt and that was it really. That was until it came to his sales pitch to get money from us. He'd obviously rehearsed this much harder.

'My children all have final exams, they need money for books and pens, we are very poor at the school and if you could leave some money, then i can buy the children some books and pens and rulers'. As Julia and I had discussed in advance the possibility of taking such things along with us, this request wasn't really too much of a problem, so i replied that we'd be happy to buy these things tomorrow and bring them, but wouldn't it also be useful if the kids would practice their English with us? These suggestions didn't go down too well and he reiterated that they didn't want the books and pens, but they wanted the money so they could buy the books and pens themselves! I explained that i'd rather hand over the actual books and pens and he then said that all the shops would be shut tonight and tomorrow for the festival at Ananda Paya, even though they were open all around us right at that moment and therefore we had to give money! Money money money, nothing was good enough other than money. Julia looked at me and could tell that i was boiling. After making the effort to come here and try and make a small difference it was all just another way of asking for money. It all sank in, the children were no doubt his grandchildren, his wife seemed so annoyed to be doing the thanaka painting on Julia, because clearly this was her role in a scam, which she probably didn't want to be involved in. I asked one last time if he would like books and pens and again his response was that money was the only real thing in his mind. I politely made our excuses and said that we had to be leaving for Dinner and walked out of the building wanting to both scream and cry. Bagan was becoming a real ball ache.

Thankfully the ever reliable Cheriland 1 cheered me up somewhat, but this feeling soon evaporated with the knowledge that Sein knew that this was where we ate and would no doubt be back the following day to continue his charade. It was with deep regret that we were to make this our last meal at the restaurant, so as not to have to run into this small time crook again. Slowly but surely, meeting people like this was making me put my defences up against the Burmese people and i didn't want to be doing that one little bit, but i just couldn't help it.