Bagan - Day 2

Bagan has two districts, old and new. When old Bagan was designated as an archaeological site, most of the residents were moved to another area, which became new Bagan. My local guide is from the only village that remained in the old Bagan area. The second day of the tour started with a visit to his village. First, the market was filled with large amounts of fresh veggies and fruits. The people were rather shy, though.  

 

This is very typical scene in Myanmar. Young monks walk around the village in the morning and the residents donate food. Some donate rice and others donate curries. The monks are bringing the food back to the temple and share it with others. People in Myanmar are very religious and pay a great amount of respect even if the monks are very young.

One of the foods that I wanted to try in Myanmar was mohinga, a very popular fish based noodle soup. I heard I could get this anywhere in Myanmar. So I asked the guide to recommend a good place to have mohinga for dinner. He said mohinga is for breakfast. I didn't know..,, But he suggested a café where I could have mohinga anytime. It was very local looking café with no English signs. The person at the counter knew only a few words in English. First, he said "No food." It seems he thought I had come in to have dinner. As soon as I said "Mohinga," he said "OK" and brought this. So, here is my first mohinga in Myanmar. It's a semi-thick broth with rice noodle and fried shallots & garlic as toppings. It's a bit spicy, but not strongly seasoned like Thai or Indian food. It has a rather delicate flavor, the broth is probably made with catfish. It was very good, but the portion was rather small because this was supposed to be a snack. I still can't believe how much I paid for this. It was about $0.20....

So, after the mohinga, I went back to the restaurant that I went to the previous night and ordered 3 salads.

Seaweed salad

Citron Salad, very tangy

Pennywort salad. I really don't know what pennywort is... Some leafy greens and it was similar to the tamarind leaf salad that I had last night, only with bigger leaves

 

These were all good. But I still like the tamarind leaf salad the best. I'm flying back to Yangon tomorrow morning. I'm glad it's not super early flight..