They said the tree had been dead for more than a hundred years. We brought its old, lifeless body from an ancient monastery and gave it new life in a place we used to call Paradise—an empty sandbank across the river, with the majestic Lokananda Pagoda watching over it from the distance.

The fisherman and his family helped us assemble oil lamps to decorate the tree. Later, we bought a few books for the children from a small local bookstore and placed them on a simple shelf nestled among its branches.

Often, at night, children from nearby villages would gather around the tree. They would pick a book and read, lying on the warm sand near the fire.

One day, I found a broken statue of the Buddha washed up on the river’s edge, near the jetty. We placed the statue on the tree to protect it from evil spirits. A few days later, we noticed elders quietly coming to pray beneath its branches.

My fisherman friend continued to care for the tree, lighting it with oil lamps once a week for several months after I had left—until the monsoon arrived.

Each year, during the rainy season, the river swells dramatically, reshaping and erasing everything on the sandbanks. Finally, the tree was swallowed by the giant, flowing serpent of the river, never to be seen again.

It could not last, and it wasn’t meant to. It was a fleeting sparkle of beauty and joy in celebration of those moments spent in Bagan with some of the most incredible people I’ve ever met.

Somehow, I feel that the presence of that tree—its warm glow, the laughter of the children, the light in their eyes, the shared stories, and the quiet moments we spent beneath it—still lingers along the shores of the river.