Day Two - When the tough get going the going gets tough. 56kms cycled

If you go to bed at 8pm, you can get 7 hours sleep. 

But when you meet in the lobby of your hotel at 4.15am it doesn't necessarily feel like it.

Still, spirits were high (well, highish!) as we collected our packed breakfasts and a quick coffee. We shouldn't have got so excited!! Two hard boiled eggs are not necessarily what you want at that hour. Peter, however, was able to keep up his egg count and received enthusiastic donations from the rest of the group.

We arrived at the airport quickly, Toe bade us farewell and our bags were whisked off to check in. The domestic terminal (the original airport building) is impressive with an alluring fading glory. No modern airport chrome, glass and illuminated signage here.
Boarding passes were a lapel sticker marked with a black sharpie.
With security checks done we monopolised the cafe (the "CIP" sadly closed) and supplemented our breakfast boxes with a unexpectedly good coffee.

We made to board the ATS twin prop aircraft from the tarmac. A near international incident was averted when urgent messages to the ground handling staff resulting in frantic walkie-talkie calls to find Sam's grey jumper. Our requests had to be quickly rescinded when the jumper was found after all ....in Sam's bag.

90 minutes later, and another breakfast down, started our descent into Bagan airport. Once again, as at Yangon, we circled a good few times before touching down in the most extraordinary storm. There must have been at least two inches of standing water on the tarmac. We watched with heavy hearts as carefully packed luggage was unloaded from the plane and left exposed for minutes in rain that would surely soak bag and contents in seconds.

We met our guide, Wallace - veteran of the 2014 cycle in the Mons State,  and boarded the bus. The drive to the hotel was  more than interesting, requiring the driver to negotiate some biblical flooding.

Undaunted we were in high spirits on arriving at the hotel in Bagan; our bikes neatly stacked and labeled outside the hotel. A beautiful courtyard hotel with a pool and lovely rooms greeted us.

We changed into our cycle gear  (soaked through for some, where the holdall was unable to repel the deluge) and went to pimp our bikes. Saddles, go pros, bar ends and pedals fixed the 2016 Hope Asia ride commenced.

Normally Burma's dusty roadways that link small towns and villages to the tarmac are as hard as concrete and make for fast and enjoyable riding. After the deluge they had turned to quicksand. Sticky, thick and unforgiving to the cyclist. None of us had anticipated an off-road mud fest, but that's what we had.

Filthy, exhausted by the hard going spirits started to flag. But perseverance was the order of the day. If only the inner tubes of our tyres were so hardy! We suffered no less than 11 punctures, depleting the supply of spares and requiring some bike juggling.

All in all we made our lunch spot 30 km in at 4.30pm! Hungry and weary we were relieved of the sustenance, and glad to see tarmac for the final 15km home.

And a charming atmospheric pagoda on the way home meant at least some of our expectations of Bagan were met. Even if we had to scuba dive through an enormous lake of a puddle to get to them.

Showers and swims were followed by an outdoor meal at the Sunset Garden restaurant accompanied by Wallace's somewhat overenthusiastic demonstration of the many many (far too many !!) ways to tie a longyi .

This would be a much well earned sleep tonight, hopefully not disturbed by visions of Wallace leaping about in the short longyi.