Day one at Inle lake. Having arrived hiddeously early off a very cramped 10 hour bus ride from Toungoo, Sean and I found ourselves a nice hostel and promptly went to sleep. Upon waking we wandered around the beautiful village of Nyaung U at the north end of Inle Lake. The standard stupas abounded but the lazy feel and laid back aura hit you right away. We knew instantly that we wanted to stay here for a good few days to really soak this up, something which was confirmed as soon as we were told that the annual boat race festival was to be held from 9-17 October and that the opening ceremony was on the coming weekend. The upshot of this was that we were definitely now going to miss out on going to Mandalay in favour of staying at Inle, which we were more than OK with (the fact that Mandalay is apparently over 40 degrees right now and requires an extra 10-15 hour bus ride to get there helped our decision too...).
On Day Two we did the obligatory 'boat tour' of the lake with a Spanish trio of Pedro, Lluma and Andreo who were staying at our hostel. This is a fab thing to do. Not only do you see beautiful 'houses on stilts':
But you also stop at a village that had a market (ok, so ignore the people trying to sell their wares if you wish and just see the locals shopping). We also took in stops at weaving, cigar, silver jewellery and parasol makers. Again, so they ask you to 'look, no buy, no problem' at the end, but their 20 minutes introduction and demonstration at the beginning is worth it! Especially to see the local women in their traditional 'thanaka' make-up:
We also visited Shwe Inn Thein Paya, the place of 1054 stuppas and counting!
And the piece de resitance, the jumping cat monastery - no words, just view the video:
Day three saw us trekking into the mountains to the east of Inle Lake. Our guide was called Wim, and he was really lovely. For a short man he did, however, walk at the speed of a cheetah running. This turned what he called an 'easy' trek into something I'm sure would feature well in the iron man competition as we practically ran both up and down the main feature moutain of our trek. It's at times like these that I often ponder about our friends James and Anne, who I always imagine would be bounding past this cheetah guide, even with baby Grace strapped to their backs, not even breaking a sweat. This is the opposite image to that of Sean and I, who were huffing and puffing more than the wolf in the Three Little Pigs.
We were grateful to arrive at our first stop, a cave that a monk has turned into his home and his own meditation area. We sipped green tea and ate bean crackers and our guides' father's home grown bananas (Sean ate 3 and he hates the things!). The cave was all in all bigger than most London flats and I'm confident to say tidier than most I should imagine.
We passed through several Pa-o villages next all the time climbing higher up the mountain and admiring the views. Pa-o are a tribe of Shan, Shan being the district in Myanmar that Inle is in. The women in these villages are easy to spot as they are the ones who wear the checked cloth on their heads (or sometimes what really does look just like a beach towel).
I also learned a lot, like that the house walls are made out of bamboo and the roofs are made from sugar can leaves, that there are plants that you can blow bubbles from the juice in their stem:
that you can eat bamboo roots (apparently they make good soups), that cows don't walk well on rocks (we passed a herd being shepherded down the small mountain trail, scared by what I can only imagine was this sight of Sean:
and they tried to pass too far away, slipped on the rocks and almost fell down the mountain), that orange maize is for animals and not people as it's too strong, what jack fruits are (southern hemisphere folks please remember I'm from England),
that the leaves of Teak trees turn your hands red if you rub them (I thought it was just the bark), and most importantly that Myanmar has to be a contender for THE most friendly place on earth. Everyone here smiles at you and says "Min gala ba" (aka 'Hello'). Or "Happy Nice Day". The children don't demand money off you (ok, so this may come with time and increased tourism) but instead with smiles and curiosity (and sometimes horror at how tall and scary Sean is).
We had lunch with a Pa-o family at the top of the mountain and entertained 6 children by taking their pics/videos which they found most amusing (shame that we couldn't record their reactions when they watched the video playback). Anyway, check out the video links on YouTube regardless.
Another monastery and Tai Yai village later (plus many more happy children) and we were back home. Tired, happy and loving Myanmar all the more. I will never forget the wonderful little boy who ran up to me and simply gave me a flower.... bless!
On Day Four we lazed around on the balcony reading 'Burmese Days' (I don't know why I'm writing this blog as Sean keeps wanting me to add things like: "Burmese Days is George Orwell's first novel, inspired by his time stationed here with the British army") and then took in the "sunset" on a traditional canoe trip around the canals on the north of the lake. "Sunset" is in inverted commas because there technically wasn't any sun as it was very cloudy. The trip itself however was lovely and relaxing and encountering water buffalos lazing around in the water all the time still made it an interesting afternoon. We also sampled rice balls (very dry and sweet - water needed to swallow them!) that were being made by a village for the forthcoming boat race festival.
Day Five was a crazy early 4.30am start to hot foot it down to the southern part of the lake in order to see the opening ceremony of the festival. Imagine an English village fete with floats, but on long boats. Every village had their own boat which they decorated with palm leaves and umbrellas and flags. It was manned by (we assume) every man and boy from that same village and they 'leg rowed' the boats from Phaung Daw Oo Paya to Shwe Inn Thein Paya. At the end of the procession was the main attraction - a boat with food offerings and then the crowning jewel - the 5 buddha statues themselves. After watching them all set on their way, we sailed to the next town to see their arrival, where all the offerings were unloaded and marched up to the temple. The locals were all out in force (so much so that our view ended up being a bit obscured as we let the locals get to the front), but it was lovely to watch everyone enjoying themselves, eating, drinking and being thoroughly merry! We were very lucky that our timing allowed us this priviledge.
And then it was time to leave. And that was a really sad day. But we had one final attraction to visit in this country - the main thing we'd come to Myanmar to see... Bagan.
Things I'll also remember:
1) The wonderful owners of Min Ga Lar Inn and the lovely lime juice drinks they gave us when we got back 'home' at the end of each day
2) Star Flower restaurant and their fresh basil (where we ran into Wim, our trek guide)
3) Braised chicken and Mint curry at Unique restaurant (a local Shan dish)
4) Aurora restaurant's generosity with portions and 'freebies' such as soup, crackers, salads, tea...
5) Running into Lisa and Partner from our Flight of the Gibbon zip wire rides in Thailand at our hostel
Here are the photos:
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