More photos from our time in Bagan.
We drove about 2 hours out of New Bagan (with a stop along the way) to Mount Popa, a temple perched on top of a volcanic plug.

Seven hundred or so stairs wind their way up the side of the mountain.

There are lots and lots of monkeys there. They look pretty much like the macaques we have in Taiwan. Some people buy little packages of corn to feed them while other people ask for donations to clean the poop off the stairs. It's an interesting economic cycle.

The temple itself is beautiful and actively used. There were lots of little chambers for praying and honoring the mountain spirits. Our guide told us the story of the star-crossed lovers and their eventual happy lives spent together on the hilltop. They are the spirits of the temple and people come from all over the region to honor them.

 The views were pretty spectacular.

Jenner wasn't interested in getting too close to the edge.

On our way we stopped at a palm tree farm. Farm isn't really the right word but I don't know a better one. It was a small operation where the family grows peanuts and sesame for oil, and harvests palm juice to make sugar and palm liquor.

The ox works to grind the peanuts and extract the oil.

The climber cuts notches into the palm fruits and hangs small clay pots to collect the juice. It's the tropical version of maple syrup.

The palm juice is either boiled down to make sugar...

 or fermented to make alcohol.

We had an incredibly delicious snack of fermented tea leaves in oil (that's in the middle section) with garlic and roasted peanuts, sesame and chickpeas.

 For dessert we had palm sugar with coconut, sesame, tamarind or plum mixed in.

There were even restrooms available. Here are the squat toilet outhouses.

And here is where you can wash up.

I thoroughly enjoyed visiting this spot along the road. It's clearly set up for the tourist trade and I was happy to spend my dollars there. These people are ingenious.