Now that's what I call paradise, part 1

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Inle Lake, 17-21 January

We landed at Heho Airport in Inle Lake from Yangon after my very first flight in a propeller plane. I had made the mistake of reading many nightmare stories about planes crashing in Burma as their internal aircraft is not approved by international safety standards due to sanctions. However, after C reassuring me ("you wouldn't not drive on the M25 because of a crash") it was all good again and soon after taking off from Yangon, I was completely transfixed by the views of the country below us as it transformed from sparse, flat, green expanse into rice and paddy fields dotted by pagodas into a towering mountain range (still dotted by pagodas). I have never seen a country with quite so many pagodas in my life.

Heho airport was, without doubt, the smallest airport I have ever seen. The plane came to a stop around thirty feet from the entrance to the arrivals lounge and passport control, which consisted of one man behind a wooden stall who didn't seem very interested at all in the whole process. We then waited while our cases were unloaded from the plane, handed through the window to the ground staff and placed all together in front of us. We then had to show our tickets to one of the men loitering who would hand us our bags with the corresponding number. No carousel, no nothing. It was so refreshing not to have to go through ten levels of security just to get our baggage and get out of the airport. After this we were free to go, and walked out of arrivals, through the (only) terminal, to the front of the airport. This took around fifteen seconds, during which we passed the entire check-in area (eight desks) and the rest of the airport (one shop).

As we started the drive to our hotel, it was hard to believe we were just a few hours from Yangon. It was like a different country entirely. Long, straight, fairly well-made roads stretched through bright green fields and then through a town with dusty streets that reminded me a little of the more remote parts of Cambodia. This soon turned into miles and miles of winding mountain road with a huge drop on one side that lead out into fields that stretched for miles around. A single train track wound its way through the hills and a very debatable-looking bridge dipped its way into the landscape. Eventually, we reached Nwaungshe, the main town of Inle Lake, where we stopped to change money. We also ended up buying a beautiful traditional Burmese blanket as we had heard it got very cold at night by the lake. Nwaungshe is meant to be the touristy part of the lake but in Burma this means a handful of shops and a few restaurants – nothing fancy and barely any signs or menus in English. It’s funny how quickly you get used to seeing no branded shops, too, there’s no McDonalds, no Boots, no Subway, no Pret in Burma – some of the smaller shops stock brands such as Nivea but other than these rarities (and, of course, Coca-Cola, which I believe only made its way into Burma in 2012) it’s simplicity all around. As in Yangon, many of the locals from toddlers to the elderly wore the traditional make-up of the people and many also chewed betel, a red tobacco, which they very loudly (and proudly) spit out on the streets. Possibly due to this habit, the Burmese have some of the worst teeth I've ever seen in my life, stained red and worn away.

As we continued on our journey, our driver pulled up at a monastery seemingly in the middle of nowhere and asked if we wanted to get out and have a look. The monks, some as young as nine or 10, were in the middle of a class chanting in Burmese. As we walked around beneath their windows, they stared out at us, completely distracted from their lesson and fascinated. It was very peaceful and a nice little introduction of the serenity we were about to encounter over the next few days. We reached our hotel just after sunset and it was absolutely stunning with beautiful, jungle-style gardens and winding pathways lit up by flickering candles, right on the banks of the lake. We were greeted with cold towels and a welcome drink (ginger and lemongrass) and shown to our room. The hotel was designed to blend in with the lake's surroundings and support the local people – eco-tourism and sustainability is a big thing in Inle Lake – so our room consisted of a wooden house on stilts with a wide balcony that overlooked the lake and interiors decorated with stunning handmade accessories, from a towel holder handcarved into the shape of two tribal people holding the towels aloft on their shoulders to the two wooden tribal warriors who flanked the wooden stairs that marked the entrance to our villa. It was, without doubt, the most beautiful hotel room I've ever stayed in and a very romantic place to mark a year since C and I had first met.

The Burmese are some of the most warm, lovely and welcoming people I've ever had the pleasure to meet. People don't just smile, they look ecstatic the entire time. When they stare, it is just out of curiosity and our smiles are always returned. But what’s strange is that, for a country that has been so untouched by tourism, there is an almost complete lack of interest in foreigners. This is the first place we've been to on this trip where people don't just stand and stare. There's always going to be a few looks but for the most part we are just left to discover this incredible place without being constantly aware that we are different. It’s just another reason why I have fallen in love with the country as we are seeing the real Burma, not a display that somebody has put on. One marked difference from Yangon was that in Inle were the ‘original’ Burmese people as many different tribes still live around the lake. None of the Indian or Bangladeshi communities that had made their stamp on Yangon existed here – these people just looked like taller, slimmer versions of those we had seen in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. The Burmese people were just absolutely lovely and really make their country what it is.

On our first full day, we could not wait to get out onto the lake. We had booked our boat for 12 noon but were up by 7am to see the lake in the light. Many parts of the lake are surrounded by marshland, so from our balcony it looked almost like a green field, even though we knew most of it was floating marshes with the river beyond. Oxen wandered past on the banks of the lake just feet away and stopped to scratch themselves against the trees or to wade into the water and cool off. Fishermen studded the landscape, slowly lifting their nets and then slamming them down fast. A farmer strode purposefully up to one of the ox and started to throw water over him; in response the ox tipped his head back and relished in the refreshment. The lake is a place where it's impossible to have a lie in as morning is when it all happens. Across Burma, nothing stays open late, it's early-rise, early-to-bed and even when we woke at this time, it was already a hub of – very peaceful – activity. An early morning mist hung over the lake and shrouded the mountains opposite within it. It cleared gradually until around 9am so that every time we looked up, a little bit more of the lake had come into view. It was beautiful. Yet nothing could have prepared us for what we were going to see.

We were picked up from our hotel jetty in a longboat, which is very similar to the ones the locals use. We had a driver and a guide. As we pushed off from the jetty, we drifted through the marshes past houses on stilts down what I suppose would be the equivalent of a pathway on dry land. A few minutes later, this opened out into the lake and we were treated to the full view of the silky, clean waters all around us, the marshes at the edge and the dazzling views of the Shan mountain range in the distance. The local people were just going about their day. Many of the fishermen used a style of rowing that is unique to the area, with one leg wrapped around the oar to guide it due to the difficulty of navigating the lake. This was life at its most serene, a place so unaffected by tourism that what we were seeing was life at its most natural, no show put on but a self-sufficient community that had existed for so long and was not about to change for anyone.

What followed was a day of absolute paradise during which we both fell completely in love with Inle Lake, the Burmese people and Burma itself. The water was so clean and fresh and as the boat whipped across the lake we were surrounded by the contrasting views of the towering mountain range with its colossal impact against the everyday hub of activity of the tribal people who live around the lake in villages comprised of houses on stilts living the 'water life.' We sailed past village after village where wooden houses balanced on stilts and the people had boats tied to the underside of their houses. Many were sat outside and waved at us as we went by. Women with buckets washed their hair in the lake's waters while elderly people sat by their windows, smoking cigars and offering us betel-stained smiles.

After awhile, we pulled up outside a high stilted house where we could hear the rhythmic clatter of machinery. It was a factory but in the very loosest sense of the word as there was no modern machinery. By the door we were met by a young girl who spoke perfect English, ready to give us a tour. There were three floors of wooden machinery operated by elderly women. The techniques and the entire process were honed to perfection and the first lady we met was slitting lotus stalks apart and pulling a very thin string out of each one – the very beginning of the process. As we walked through the factory, we met many women who sat weaving at a loom, using their hands and their feet at the same time with complete precision of time and delicacy. We were shown what looked like a bubbling cauldron, atop a coal fire with smoke pouring out, which is where they make the dye for the garments they produce (mostly scarves). They used both chemical dyes and colour extracted from three different types of leaf, one from a tree that only grows in the Inle Lake area and nowhere else in the world. At the end of the tour, we were directed to the inevitable shop and greeted by another Burmese staple – extortionate prices. The cheapest lotus scarves were $200. We settled for a couple of really beautiful silk scarves at a fraction of the price and paid a young boy who sat beneath an Aung San Suu Kyi poster.

Afterwards, we sailed back into the wider part of the river and stopped for lunch at a place our driver recommended named Nice Restaurant. It turned out this was a name well-deserved. We ate chicken curry with cashew nuts and bean curd salad in an idyllic spot, high up in the stilted restaurant with boats sailing leisurely past, fishermen working away on the marshlands on one side of us and people going about their daily lives in the floating village on the other, loading bags on and off canoes and washing themselves and their clothes in the lake. After lunch, we visited a cigar manufacturers and watched the ladies rolling and wrapping up cigars that came in a number of exotic flavours – tamarind, banana, aniseed, pineapple and honey. We tried the aniseed cigars and they tasted so pure.

Afterwards we took a lengthy ride across the river in the longboat and ended up at a silversmiths, where we watched them string intricate jewellery together and learned that it takes three days just to make a simple silver necklace. A row of men sat at long wooden tables where they worked with unbroken concentration, in front of a wall decorated with newspaper cuttings depicting English football teams. This was the place where C bought my early birthday presents; in one of the most beautiful jewellery shops I’ve ever seen and it felt very special to buy the products right where they were made. After this we went to an sunshade-making shop (I think the driver was running low on ideas by this point) where we met some of the “long-neck” ladies, who wear huge gold rings around their necks and look fairly downtrodden. One of them took my hand and touched my bare arm. She looked concerned, "You are not cold?" she asked. It was around 28 degrees so I was in a vest top but she wore long sleeves. I could not fathom how a woman who has spent her life wearing rings around her neck was concerned for my welfare.

As we sailed back towards our hotel on the other side of the lake, the sun started to set above the mountains. Soon, the entire sky was ablaze with hot pinks and reds framing the dark mountains, all set over the tranquil river. It was absolutely stunning. The boat driver seemed completely unfazed by this and I wondered whether it would ever get mundane if you saw this view everyday, although that’s difficult to imagine. After dinner that night at our hotel, we were brought the lovely surprise of hot ‘goodnight tea’ by two very smiley young Burmese men. After we drank it, we lay on our balcony wrapped up in our blanket and wished upon the stars. The sky looked like it did on the ceiling of my bedroom when I was little, like someone had painted it completely pitch black and then brushed on the brightest stars they could find. We must have laid for hours wrapped up in our blankets, the unbroken silence and the heavy blackness of the night sky. What a perfect day.

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