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Published: February 19th 2011
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We arrived early morning from the Heho airport after a 36 minute flight with Air Bagan. The flight was 100% better than I expected, I'd heard all sorts of horror stories about the domestic flights in Myanmar but our aircraft looked fine (it had some Alitalia logos here and there so that gave some reassurance). We met with a woman working for EPG travel at the airport, we reconfirmed our Heho-Yangon flight and got in a taxi to Nyaungshwe where we were spending two nights at the Hu Pin hotel. The hotel was easy to be found; a bright yellowy orange building at the entrance to town. We got room 701 which was up 4 flights of stairs, no elevator, but the bonus was the mountain views across town. We were absolutely knackered from a day cycling around Bagan followed by getting up at 5am...so we rested a bit and then went for a lunch at Inle Pancake kingdom. Their slogan is something along the lines of 'Are you tired of rice yet?!' and even though were not, it was great to have a cheese pancake!!
We got a great tip from the waiter at the restaurant about cycling to
a winery estate near town, so after taking another mini siesta we rented some bikes and headed for the 'Red mountain estate'. Even though our butts were still bruised from the day before, the half hour ride through town, the neighboring village and fields was a nice one. The last stretch up the hill was a little too much so we walked the last bit. There were only three other guests, French, and we decided to go for their 9 wine-tasting, despite our short amount of time (we arrived at 4.45pm, sunset is around 5.45, it's dark at 6.15). From the first sip of a nice dry white wine (Chardonnay) we were sold...and the 8 wines that followed were just as good. We enjoyed the stunning views over the vineyards, mountains and caught a first glimpse of Inle lake just as the sun was setting. It was impressive to hear that the business was run by a local Burmese (with imported vines from Spain, Israel and Italy). This was really a great first day in Inle and I recommend a visit to this estate to anyone with a free afternoon in the area!
During the tasting we had a
small salad to eat, after all we didn't want the wine to go straight to our heads, we had the bike ride back to town ahead of us still! We headed out about 6.05pm and managed to get back to town at about double the speed, just in time before darkness. We stopped at the Smiling Moon, where you can arrange treks, boat trips etc. We wanted to arrange our boat for the next day and even though our hotel arranged boats too we thought we should check out an agency (for better prices and to spread our business). We met Mu Kyi, who has been running the office since her husband passed away. He was a linguist, so her English is great. We had a lovely chat with her and we booked a boat to take us around the lake for the next day, for 11,000 kyats. We heard from another local this is a great price as many have upped their price to 15,000 due to government regulations and increasing gas prices so that was nice to hear.
As we had only had a small bite to eat we stayed at the smiling moon and ate a
tasty noodle soup in their restaurant. We had an early night to catch up on some much needed sleep, our busy itinerary had taken its toll a little bit on our bodies....
The next day we 'slept in' until 7.30 and were happy to see that the Hu Pin had a decent breakfast with real coffee! Our boat driver was waiting for us when we were ready to leave for the lake around 9.15. Our bright blue boat was at the end of a busy canal and had two wooden chairs with blankets to sit on. Pretty comfy! We were glad we had wrapped up quite warm because this area is chilly in the morning, the cool air is replaced by a warm breeze around 10.30-11am, when the sun can be felt. After a short trip through a narrow canal we arrived at the big lake, which is an understatement. It's gigantic. You can't see any of the edges, it seems to go in forever. It's also surrounded by gardens and floating villages on the lake so there is no clear place where it really 'stops'.
The lake has floating gardens all around the edges and even in
the middle, plants are growing everywhere. To make sure that fishermen and other boatsmen can still pass through, they hit the water with their paddles to clear the plants. Our boatmen spoke OK English and was able to point out a few things to us. It's amazing how some of the gardens are structured. There are neat rows of tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, beans, onions....pretty much any vegetable you can think of they have it. We got out of our boat to stand on the floating garden, a funny feeling, a little like standing on a swaying surfboard!
These vegetables are sold at the markets (floating markets as well as on dry land). These rotate around the lake, we visited a market in the town of Khaung Daing which was a little chaotic but fun to see. Walking around town a nice man invited us in for tea along with some of his (more quiet) fisherman. His English was great and he seemed to really enjoy being able to use it.
We continued along the lake to several other villages, dotted with temples, monasteries and houses built on stilts. There were also a few 'mandatory' stops at the so-called
factories, silver and weaving. Usually these things annoy me a little because they are often not actually part of the itinerary but more to get a commission. The factories here were pretty interesting and even though it does get a little tiring, you want to buy something for their efforts of showing you around, and the wares they sell are often very nice. So in the silver shop we bought some earrings (after bargaining a little, after all, we had to remember we still had to eat lunch and dinner several nights with the remaining money! 😊 and our boatman was very happy. We said that we didn't want extra stops after that though! So we skipped the longneck women, a "tradition" that I do not want to be a contributor to (we saw about 8 people standing around 2 miserable looking women, flashing their cameras at them).
What is amazing on Inle Lake is that pretty much everywhere you look is a photo opportunity (click to the next oage for even more photos 😊. The fishermen that use a unique rowing technique; they row with one leg so that their hands are free to throw out the nets.
Very impressive and it looks extremely tiring, yet they do this for hours.....
Our day on the lake came to an end about 4pm, we had a lovely dinner at a local restaurant where we were served by boys of about 12 (they were extremely happy to be doing child labour, that was certain!) where I enjoyed a first Myanmar beer (nothing special, but tasty anyway). We had another early morning departure to Kalaw the next day!
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