The E-Bikes are straight forward vehicles. The right hand grip is the throttle, along with a manual squeeze brake. When I first mounted one of these things it was hard not to accidentally turn back the throttle and leap forward, which is exactly what I did and catapulted myself across the road and skid out wildly as I hit the brakes a little too hard in panic.

I took a breath, looked back at the renter of the E-Bike from the guesthouse, who looked on and I wasn’t sure which on of us might be having the most second thoughts on me using this thing, then slowly I pulled back the throttle, wobbly balanced myself, and took off down the road.

It must have taken a good 20mins to get used to riding the bike, but when I finally found that groove I was a man on wheels, on a mission from Buddha. The plan of attack on this day was to visit the temples and ruins along Myinkaba, which covers the area between New Bagan and heading north toward Old Bagan.

I had figured that since I was new to this entire driving thing that I’d avoid the highway and take the back roads. I had plotted out the vague route the night before in Maps.ME and was somewhat quickly to learn that back roads don’t necessarily mean roads in the paved sense. These were rural dirt roads, that weren’t all that bad to drive on (on this day), however my newbie driving skills were tested infinitely more than if I had just take then actual highway.

What made driving around so enjoyable was the pure freedom of it all. The traffic on the roads, including the highway, is barely existent, so my initial fear of imaging Yangon style traffic of car after car madly driving by me until I eventually crashed into one, were embarrassingly unfounded. To be cruising down road, at maybe pushing top speed of 40km/h, was just sheer fun. And while it didn’t have the same adventurer feel of being on foot, it had it’s own adventurous charm and now I was a bikie letting lose with the roar of a soft electronic motor hum.

In Myinkaba I still spent a lot of time on foot. There’s few great places to park the bike and go wandering for an hour or so. This area is barely on the tour guide go to places, so you only pass of odd tourist on a bike and the sites themselves are relatively free of souvenir shops. Of the E-Bike journeys this area really stood out as my favourite. It still had an untouched feel to it, and I fear when that will change and Myinkaba becomes more like the tourist attracted areas. But for this day, it was my playground to explore and bike around.

The following day I headed into Old Bagan, and the area east of there heading toward Nyaung U, simply called the Northern Plain. This was tourist ground zero. Entering Old Bagan seemed innocent enough. I stopped at some temples and sure enough was approached by a painter. Their tactics are all the same, they’ll offer you a walk around the temple and give you some legitimately interesting information about the site, however it all leads to the eventual request to come see there shop, or in this case (and every other “painter”), the offer to see their paintings.

There must have been at least two dozen times I’ve had to tell the hawkers that not only am I not interested, but I don’t have any money on me anyway. To most of their credit, if you smile and say you’re not interested they’ll leave you alone. They’re generally quite cool about it. But there’s the bad eggs that are the norm in other countries, and they don’t let up. All you can do is just walk away.

One of the more disturbing stories I heard from was the Frenchman, in the guesthouse, the same Frenchmen that I had met back in Inle Lake. The hawker had taken his shoes when he entered a paya, and when he returned looking for them, the hawker came over and said the shoes were at his shop, forcing him to visit the shop. The audacity is just astounding.

The sites overall in this area I found a little disappointing, however I think that disappoint came mostly from bias. After the last two days of exploring temples and ruins in rural fields, still being taken over by nature, these were more gentrified. Many had been reconstructed, much to the critical scorn of UNESCO, and here were the tour buses and wolf packs of tourists.

At most of the sites the first thing you see are the entourage of buses parked outside, and upon visiting the site, souvenir shops lined every possible spot. At one of the temples the entire inside wall was jam packed with shops, selling the exact same paintings and lacquerware over and over. I had wondered how much tourism may have spoilt Myanmar so far, and to much positively it really is only this area of Bagan that felt like the seeds of the tourist cash grab were being planted. It’s just a matter of how long until those seeds turn to weeds and infest the country.

I had plotted a path to leave the highway from Nyaung U and head south through the Northern Plains via the back streets. The first path ended up being nothing but a mud trail, that I initially started down, got stuck and almost lost control, and then figured this was a bad idea. I found another road further back and head down there instead. It was a great journey too, weaving through dirt tracks, and pulled up on random temples out in the fields. I only saw two other tourists taking this route, which made me smile knowing there’s others going off the beat track looking for a sense of adventure.

The final temple I stopped at on this day made the entire day worthwhile. I had briefly stopped to check the GPS and saw on the map there was a big temple nearby. Taking off and rounding the corner, the temple came into view over the trees. A great golden stupa rose up to the sky and I knew I had to go there. It ended up being the most peaceful temple I’d visit, golden and surrounded by a walled garden. The only sounds you can hear were the occasional clopping of horse drawn carriages, and the chirping of birds. Just so very very zen.

My next and final day was meant to be the most adventurous. The plan was to head east from New Bagan and make my way through the Southern Plain, taking all the back roads. This didn’t happen quite as planned. In fact I’d say my plan was a complete failure, and I came away with a good lesson in not over extending ones new found biking skills (or lack thereof).

After a half an hour pleasant ride down the highway, I headed off road north and found myself in amazing farm land. The road, however, seemed to be predominately used by horse and cart, so there were two worn tracks for both the carts wheels, with plants in the middle and both sides of the path. I started to over think, trying to stay on the half metre wide dirt track, with crops on my right smacking my legs, and I began to lose balance. Many times I had to break, stop for a moment to try and gain my calm, then slowly continue on.

Finally I reached the first temple along this route, which was closed due to the recent earthquake. Many of the temples in Bagan are closed off because of earthquake earlier this year, and just as many have bamboo re-enforcements surrounding the stupas as they make repairs. It’s not an entirely bad thing, I pretty sure I’d rather they close these areas off rather than the chance a brick wall falling on you. Would travel insurance even cover that?

I checked out the next section of the path, which lead to a good 2 metre steep sloped drop, then back up again as the path continued. Even if I managed to get the bike down there, there was zero chance of getting back up. So I turned back to the highway and made my way into the village of West Paw-saw in an attempt to rejoin my original route.

To my surprise here was a tourist bus. This is a tiny village with small dirt roads than I’m not even sure how a bus managed to make it anywhere into the village. It was just so completely out of place. Yet the tourists where there, and the locals directed them to their shops. It would seem the village had discovered the tourist dollar and were happy to indulge. That’s not to say the village was touristy, quite the opposite, which made the bus and foreigners the more strange to see.

My attempt to continue the originally plotted route ended here. Heading down the street to rejoin the mapped path lead to the worst thing for an E-Bike – sand. I had encountered sand briefly the day before and it makes for a hard ride. Today I discovered just had difficult it is to control a bike in sand. The front wheel is all over the places sliding in the sand, so you need to put your full strength into keep the bike straight. Being a rural village most of the roads where a mix of dirt and sand, but usually mostly dirt and the sand not posing to much of an issue.

But this one particular road was mostly sand, and I must have lost control a good three or four times, The worst part is my instinct was to pull back on the handlebars of the bike to try to stop myself, but in doing so meant I’d pull back the throttle and accelerate forward, freaking out as the bike wavered left and right, and hard pressing the brakes throwing me forward and having to dig my feet into the sand to stop.

The only damage I did to myself was just the once, where my leg caught the brunt of the bike as I was trying to stop myself. It was just a graze, but the overall experience was enough to briefly shatter my confidence in riding until I got back on the highway and eventually composed myself on flat sandless road.

The rest of the day was driving along normal(ish) roads and getting a little bit templed out. There were quite a lot of tourists in the area, mostly with a guide which meant motorcades of bikes slowly following the guide and making it hard to overtake them. But much like the day before, it was the last site I stopped at that made it all worth while.

There’s a monastery that has the most amazingly preserved temple. As I went to enter, the local hawkers were having lunch and offered me to join them. They seem to have lunch pretty early here, around 11:30am, and I wasn’t really hungry so I declined. Yet it was so nice that they offered. This was actually the second time this day I was offered by some locals their food. Just such nice people.

While every other temple had murals that had faded in time, this one had mostly complete murals inside, with pictures of Buddha and beautiful artwork painted all over. The sign out the front said no photos, and for a good reason. Most people will use a flash inside, and a flash camera does considerable damage to paint. I just looked in wonder and made my way out.

On leaving a girl come over and pointed to the monastery – caves, she said. Wandering down there was a sign in the monastery saying Cave Grotto. So I entered and discovered cave tunnels that acted as the monks living quarters. As I walked through the underground grotto, beds and basic sleeping rooms were carved out in the rock. I felt like a bit of an intruder, aimless exploring where monks live and sleep. Still, an amazing place to visit.

The monks in Myanmar have an affinity for cats. I’m not actually sure if there’s a reason behind this, however if you walk into a monastery you will find cats. Lots of cats. In fact the bungalow I was staying in the guesthouse was decorated with cat pictures. Since it was lunchtime, the monks were feeding their cats, and one monk must have had a good dozen cats surrounding him as he feed them rice. 

With that done I headed back to New Bagan to chill out for the rest of the day, not planning anything since I was up the next morning to head off to Ngapali Beach. Naturally the Frenchman, who actually turned out to be half Irish, arrived at the guesthouse with a beer, and the two of us sat in the garden exchanging stories and drinking far too much beer into the night. It’s always the unplanned drinking nights that end up the worst.

Nursing an enormous hang over the next morning, I bid farewell to the crazy girls that ran the guesthouse (exemplifying the saying “inmates running the asylum”), jumped in a taxi to the airport, and was off on my way to Ngapali Beach, the final destination of this trip.