Day trip to Mount Popa & Sale (L)

After breakfast, you’ll travel to Nyaung U, visiting the lively market and downtown area there. After breakfast, you will travel onwards to Mt. Popa (approx. 1½-hour drive). On the way, you will visit several villages and see how the local people extract sap from palm trees and convert it into palm sugar. You’ll visit the large extinct volcano that rises above the shimmering heat waves – the lonely peak of Mount Popa. This is the home of Myanmar’s most powerful ‘nats’ (spirits). You will visit the Nat Museum and its life-sized statues of the 37 nat gods. You will climb the steps to the stupas and shrines on the summit above the museum and encounter many pilgrims on the way. Lunch at the Popa Mountain Resort. After lunch, you’ll continue on to Sale (approx. 1½ hours), a religious centre with many more active monasteries than can be found in present-day Bagan. Visits include the Payathonzu Temple, with its three shrines and murals; the Nan Paya Temple, with the largest lacquered Buddha statue in Myanmar, believed to originate from the 13th century and the Yoke Sone monastery, the oldest wooden monastery near Bagan. You will return to Bagan in the late afternoon.