Balance

I  headed out on my hired bicycle as soon as I felt it was light enough to be safe among the right-hand drive vehicles driving on the right on unpredictable roads, and was early enough to see the sun rise behind a few of the thousands of temples and stupas that cover the 26-square-mile Bagan plain.

It was brilliant to be using biking muscles, since I discovered when I woke up that all the ones for climbing up and down things were pretty wrecked after the last three days (though once I reached a temple the climbing muscles were needed again).

After several hours cycling through sand and seeing Buddha statues, evil spirits, lions made out of brick and plaster, 300-year-old frescoes and buildings held up with UNESCO metal girders (after the devastating 1975 earthquake) I was ready for a break. I tried to find a stupa by the river Ayeyarwady (Irrawaddy) to sit in noonday shade and gaze at water but I got lost and ended up at a working village on the sand by the river. The houses on stilts were made from bamboo poles and bamboo matting, with dried leaves as roofs. At the water's edge a constant flow of men and women walked down these narrow planks with wet gravel on their heads, dumped it into one of two waiting trucks, then went back to the boat for more. Others were shovelling gravel that had obviously been offloaded earlier before the trucks arrived. What heavy, slow labour...

While I was on this beach I heard very loud, tinny recorded music, which is very common around pagodas where people are trying to raise money. But no pagoda in site. At the sound, children came running from all directions towards a moped which had a loudspeaker tied onto a basket on the front and, I realised, frozen, dyed, sweet water stored in a large wooden box on the back. An 'ice cream' van!

I did finally find the riverside stupa and it was stunning, but this completely unexpected discovery was a highlight of my day.