Inle Lake, Myanmar – December 5th – 9th, 2016

Our first overnight bus performed as expected, it got us to Inle Lake. We did not, however, sleep. Why the Asian buses feel the need to set the air-conditioner to 12 degrees C (53 degrees F) is beyond us! Apart from insomnia and hypothermia, the bus was quite comfortable. The seats were large and they provided a useless blanket, snack, and even a toothbrush and toothpaste. We arrived in Nyaung Shwe just before dawn and, because we have become increasingly cheap, groggily walked the 20 minutes to our hotel. When we arrived, a miracle occurred: we were greeted at a locked front gate by the owner, checked in, and were taken to our clean comfortable bungalow to get some sleep before being invited to breakfast (for free!). 

In the afternoon, we ventured out into the city via bicycle. We visited a bustling market, ate lunch, and rode to a nearby winery. Yes, you read that correctly: Winery! Unlike Nepali wine, which, in case you missed that post, is disgusting, Myanmar wine is passable, not good, but passable. The scenery, though, was spectacular. Based on this, and not the wine, we stayed several hours and watched the sun go down while chatting with a German couple. After sunset, we rode back to town (in the dark without lights) with our new friends and enjoyed some pizza and fruit shakes (finally a meal without rice – 2^nd miracle of the day!).

Markets around Nyaung Shwe.

Red Mountain Estate Winery.

Day two around Inle Lake was another bicycle day. We rode about one hour to Khaung Daing, which, based on our trusted (not so trustworthy) travel website, is “a sprawling village stretch along Inle Lake featuring various food-related cottage industries.” We think they should change the wording to say, “a largely abandoned village along Inle Lake featuring houses where they supposedly make food, but you won’t see or taste any of it.” We rode around the entire village looking and asking the locals for yellow pea tofu. After an hour, we finally happened upon a man and wife stirring a large pot of white slop which we are hereby assuming was tofu. After an epic fail seeking out the “food-related cottage industries” we settled on watching a local soccer game before moving on to a hill top pagoda with good views of the lake. In addition to good views, it turns out the steps leading up to the pagoda, is also a sort of lovers lane for young Myanmar couples looking to get away from cultural no no’s and parental supervision. Hungry again (on a side note having to eat regularly is such an inconvenience), we rode back to Nyaung Shwe and grabbed some lunch (more curry and rice). After a couple of hours at the hotel planning the next leg of our adventure, we took the bikes out again to a nice wooden monastery before attending a traditional puppet show. The show was really just puppets doing traditional Myanmar dances, but because they are puppets, it was amusing and the puppeteer was very talented.

Biking around Khaung Daing.

Pictures from the Shwe Yan Bye Monastery and Aung puppet show. 

We woke up early the next day to meet our boatman for a tour of Inle Lake. This is the main attraction at Inle Lake and was set up perfectly to squeeze money out of tourists. You ride around a picturesque lake and visit handicraft markets and manufacturing homes on stilts, where the locals show you how they make their products. We saw how they make silver jewelry from raw silver ore, hand-weave scarves and skirts out of raw cotton, silk, and lotus flowers, build traditional fishing boats, and roll cigars from leaves. After you learn their trade, you, of course, are ushered through a store where you feel obligated to buy something (plus, how they make things from scratch is super cool). Their techniques are clearly effective since even us, the penny pinchers, bought some gifts and souvenirs. In addition to the handicraft tourist trap, we also visited floating villages, In Dein (pagodas galore), a monastery with a lot of pigeon poop (as always, shoes were prohibited), and a jumping cat monastery. Apparently, a deceased monk used to train cats to jump at the jumping cat monastery, but since he passed away the cats do not jump. There are, however, a plethora of cats, one of which is a complete asshole and swatted at me, making my finger bleed. Andy thought this was hilarious because, apparently, I was "chasing the cat." On the way back, we watched some of the traditional fisherman paddle their boats with one leg while fishing using giant circular nets – they have amazing balance! The long day was topped off by incredibly delicious Indian food made by a young guy that was convinced Andy was Justin Timberlake.

Views around Inle Lake.

Some of the sites around Inle Lake. The top row of photos shows silver production, harvesting thread from lotus flowers, and weaving. The bottom row of photos were taken at the pigeon shit monastery, cigar making factory, and boat building shack. 

Exploring the pagodas at In Dein.

The next two days were spent doing a trek in the mountains east of Inle Lake. We met our guide, Sunny, bright (pun intended) and early and started walking towards his family’s house in a farming village called Yin Pyer. On the way, we saw a cave which, along with all other natural phenomena in Myanmar, had been converted into a Buddhist temple. After about 4-5 hours of hard climbing, we stopped for lunch at a bamboo shack, where our guide cooked us food from a fire in the “kitchen”. Three other tourists (two guys from Italy and a Romanian woman) joined us midway through our lunch and we talked about our favorite topic: the mystery of Donald (Trump that is, and favorite should be read with sarcasm). Back on the trail, we stopped to see the view and let our chain-smoking 21 year old guide have a smoke break. Just before sunset we arrived at our home for the night – a bamboo shack, with solar power for lights, surrounded by cigar leaf trees. At Sunny’s request, we climbed the nearby hill to the town’s monastery to watch the sun go down with the other foreigners, while he started to prepare our dinner.

Trekking to and from Yin Pyer village.

Back a Sunny’s house, we met his family, and settled into our digs – a thin pad on the floor with some blankets. The experience was humbling to say the least. The house consisted of four rooms, a kitchen, a living space, and two bedrooms, all separated by woven bamboo walls. The entire contents of the house, including personal belongings, would fill one regular US-sized closet. Cooking was done from a squatting position using two small clay fire kilns. Although the “windows” were open, smoke from the “stove” filled the entire house. The toilet was an outhouse, which was really four woven bamboo walls with a plastic squat toilet over a hole in the ground. Sunny’s mom worked from 4:30 am to after 10 pm preparing meals (which consist of rice and cauliflower curry literally every day), cleaning, feeding the chickens and cows, tending to the fields, etc. etc. etc. Even when “relaxing” she was still peeling garlic to reseed the fields in the coming weeks. Although the villages are undoubtedly some of the financially poorest people in the world, we left conflicted, because at no point did we pity them. They appear content with what they have and happy to be surrounded by family and friends while working the day and night away. If anything, we are beginning to learn that money does not bring you happiness, it simply enables you to be lazy. Don’t get me wrong, rich people are not necessarily lazy (well to be frank, they are in comparison to these people), but it is far too easy to get used to the comforts, and we take what we have for granted every day. As cliché as it is, we truly do not need material possessions to be happy. Perhaps our desire for possessions and wealth gets in the way of the things that truly bring happiness. Okay, rant over, especially because what I am about to say may, very well be, hypocritical. After watching the sunrise and spending a couple early morning hours reflecting on the past 12 hours, we were thrilled to be walking back to our comparatively lavish hotel with all of the comforts. It turns out that our posh, sensitive bodies were not at all pleased with sleeping/eating on the floor and breathing impure air. When we arrived at the hotel, we promptly washed ourselves and all of our clothes, including our backpacks, to try and rid ourselves of the smell. Yup, we’re definitely lazy and spoiled…     

Sunny's parents house. 

Just because we love animals, and miss Tucker (our dog), some pictures of animals around Inle Lake.