We arrived in Yangon in the afternoon and did not get up to much, so that part of this story is pretty bland, but the next morning we made our way to the airport and took a flight to Heho airport near the town of Nyaungshwe and Inle Lake. The flight itself was pretty good and the view from the plane was beautiful as we flew fairly low (ish) over the hills of Myanmar. After we touched down at Heho we had a bit of a problem as there were two drivers waiting there for us. Seems that Aya contacted our hotel about getting a driver and gave them our details, but they hotel never confirmed a driver and had in fact told her to just get a cab. So Aya booked another private driver instead. So there we were with two people standing there looking at us trying to figure out what was going on. In the end, we took the private driver and spent about 45 minutes getting from the airport to our hotel.
The road between the airport and the town of Nyaungshwe was fairly underdeveloped and at many places along the way it was clear they were trying to expand and improve the road with diggers and human laborers carrying cans of tar or baskets of gravel. It looked like extremely hard work, I thought to myself as I whisked by in my air conditioned car. Often we forget how lucky we are to have things we think are normal, like a flushing toilet or 24 hour access to electricity, but this was not one of those lapsing moments.
Our hotel, called Manle, was a pretty nice place. Very simple in it's layout, but nice. We spent a few nights here and the staff were very polite and always attentive. Of course, staff will be nice to customers, but there was something extra here and we were pretty impressed with the manners of people generally on our trip. I guess that is a saying about Myanmar, not much to see, but tourists come back for the people. I'm not totally sure I agree with the not much to see part, but I can fully agree about the people. Everyone we met was very nice and treated us fairly.
The two full days that we had at the lake we used to rent a boat and to see as much of the lake as we could and then the other day we just bummed about on the hotel bicycles, had some wine at a local winery in the hills, looking at some old temples, and eventually going to a puppet show at night. I have to say one of my favorite moments was the puppet show, but a close second was taking the bikes on a back road and just coming across some old stupas that no one else was looking at, or seeming caring to upkeep. Right after, we hit a kink in the road and weren't sure where to go, but a friendly monk stuck her head out the window of a building and waved us in the right direction. A moment later we passed a place called Hair Cats (a small place in the middle of nowhere, mind you) and a man called out, "Want a hair cat?"Aya will never forget it, I fear.
The lake is the main draw to the area, of course. We rented a boat for what would be about 25 dollars for the day. As with most things like this, it was partly understood that the driver would be taking us to shops and getting a commission if we bought anything. Before taking off we had lunch and then walked with the driver down to the canal to board the boat. It was a long wooden boat, which we were to find out later was made with local teak wood and lacquered with local tars. The engine was a long diesel engine that made quite a noisy put-put sound and it quickly got us through the canal and out into the open lake. It was a very nice day with some clouds, but mostly sunny and fairly warm. Cranes and other birds were doing their fishing along the shores and men were doing their fishing in the shallow lake.
We wouldn't really need long sleeves until later in the day as the sun was out and it was nearly noon. The smell of the fresh water, some decay of plants, and the expanse of the lake made me a little home sick as it reminded me of lake Michigan. Along the water's edge were many houses built on stilts as well as the occasional passing of another put putting boat. One of the things the lake is well known for is the fishermen who balance on the end of the wooden boats, keeping hold of the tilling oar with one leg and dipping their large wooden baskets into the water to fish. There were plenty enough of them, so much I wondered how the lake sustained itself.
We took about 45 minutes to make it all the way to the southern end of the lake where we then slowly made our way between smaller villages out on the water and from shop to shop seeing crafted silver, silks, wood, and other wares. Probably the most interesting place was a shop that had many looms for making fabric. The shop had various combinations of silk and lotus root textile, something I had never thought of before or seen, but it seemed to be quite rare and expensive. If nothing else it took the ladies working there an awfully long time to get all the root from the lotus in quantities large enough to weave them into textile. Of course, we had a walk about their shop too, but settled to have a tea and wait for our driver to get back rather than making a big purchase. I think overall our driver was disappointed as we only got one teak box with rolled cigarettes and didn't buy anything else our whole trip, not much commission for him. We also made our way through the "floating garden", what was essentially a floating boggy area, quite large, where tomatoes and other veggies were grown. I was quite impressed really. I bet the veggies were tasty.
At the end of the day we ended up at the "Jumping Cat" monastery where it was legend that the monks had trained cats to jump through hoops, but no longer did as it was seen as cruel. I don't know what is cruel about that, I really wanted to see some jumping cats, but all the cats there were not very jumpy. More the usual loungy type. We chilled for a bit and waited for the sunset, what was touted as a must see. Nearing dusk, we entered back to our boat and made our way the rest of the way across the lake as the sun set over the mountains. With the put putting in our ears, the lake smell in our nose and the golden rays slicing through mountains and clouds, it was a beautiful end to a very nice day.
