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Published: January 28th 2013
16 January 2013
We stay at the Princess Gardens Hotel in Nyaungshwe. I think it is by far the nicest place to stay here. Ko Aung and Mee Mee are wonderful hosts and their bungalows are lovely. They have just been forced by the government to extend their original 8 rooms to twenty to be able to maintain their hotel license and have had to build some extra bungalows and a wing of attached rooms to this purpose. The rooms are great but the bungalows are fantastic. We are lucky to have been able to get One. They are usually full and the only reason we can stay here is because of the government ruling - so not all bad in this case, as far as we are concerned. Princess Gardens is also the only place with a pool in Nyaungshwe; an added perk which we make use of, as, despite the cold winter mornings and nights, midday is hot. Our bungalow looks out over farms and the quiet is soul soothing.
We hire bikes and head off around the lake on our second day. We quickly leave the road and find a way through farms and vegetable gardens and
leg rower
Inle Lakesugar plantations. The area is farmed intensely.
The bumpy track leads us into the heart of the sugar industry on Inle Lake. It is amazing to see how it works here. Andrew and I grew up in a sugar farming region in Natal, SA, but the scale of production there was industrial. Here it is all about small family plantations and mills, where everyone gets involved and there is no waste. It is highly efficient in a pastoral sort of way. The cane cuttings for the next season are bundled and left in roadside canals to shoot before planting. Once the cane gets cut it is brought to the family sugar mill, a medieval contraption which wrings the juice from the cane and leaves the cane juice and husks separated. The husks are then used to fuel the cooking process and the juice is boiled down and refined to caramel coloured slabs which are cut and sold at the market. When I first tasted these blocks at the market I thought they were palm sugar. The taste is very similar and the sugar produced is great for cooking. The locals make some really good rice flour and syrupy sugar
snacks which stick to your teeth for days but are well worth the cavities.
We emerge from the sugar plantations near the much talked about hot springs. They are a disappointment and we move on without partaking. At the next village, Kaung Daing, we rent a boat to take us across the lake. Two bikes and two people for US$8. We land at Maing Thauk and pedal back towards Nyaungshwe.
On this side of the lake we don't manage to escape the road, but the cycle is pleasant. We stop on the way to look at the vineyards of the new Red Mountain Winery. The winery is at the top of a push-your-bike-up hill but the views across the flowering sugar cane to the lake are stunning.
It is market day in Nyaungshwe and so Andrew heads for the pool while I go off in search of photographs. The Nyaungshwe market day is different to all the others. It is a local market selling stuff that local people need, and of course some of the best local produce. I fill my bicycle's basket with rice and syrup sweets, peanuts, honey oranges and a papaya which is not
ripe enough to eat yet, but I REALLY feel like some papaya, and have been teased by piles of them seen everywhere in the last two days.
Nyaungshwe has become a real travellers town. There are Internet cafes, trekking services, tour agencies, supply stores and guest houses in abundance. But a couple of places will stay with us: Shop no 21 on the main road is, by day, a watch repair operation. At night it becomes the family restaurant and serves the most amazing avocado and tomato salads in the world. The smiles which greet us every time we turn up at Comet Internet shop keep us loyal. And then there is Thae Su Massage. The massage is ok, very gentle; but the mom and daughters masseuse team are so lovely that we go back twice just to see them. Teau Su is saving up to open a restaurant, which is where her passion lies.
Three days is enough for Inle Lake, and on day four while we are waiting for the night bus to Yangon to leave at 18h00, we are starting to feel restless and ready for a new adventure.
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