Ballerina Boatmen at Inle Lake

Inle Lake and Nyaung Shwe

When we arrived at the town of Nyaung Shwe at around 4.30am, we made our way to the hotel and we were able to check in straight away. We chucked our bags in and even though we were desperate for a few hours’ sleep, we headed straight out for a sunrise boat trip on Inle Lake. The boatman tried to convince us to go out all day with him around the lake but we couldn’t face it so we arranged to meet him on the following day to do the lake trip. 

Ballerina boatmen

 The sunrise boat trip took us about 20 minutes into the lake on a motorboat, and we soon spotted the famous fisherman that balance on one leg. This is a fabulous sight and they look like acrobats or ballet dancers. Of course, they have started to cash in on this, and we were approached by two fishermen who performed for the camera, and for a nice tip. Set against the sunrise, we got some great pics of them. 

 

Back to the hotel for a couple of hours, then up for lunch and to hire a scooter. There didn’t appear to be any tourists on scooters, they were all on push bikes, so we hired a couple for the day. It was great to get some exercise, and this area is a bit cooler than Bagan where It was about 38 degrees every day so it was quite pleasant. We went to Gallery 19, a lovely little place full of pictures taken by a local photographer. We looked around the museum which was not the most exciting place in the world. We cycled round to the Yadana Man Aung Pagoda, full of what I dubbed ‘bizartefacts’. Weird, random objects sitting behind glass in the pagoda, such as those china chickens you have in the kitchen to keep your eggs in, and other strange things.

Bizartefacts

Young monks

We had a look round the Shwe Yan Pyay Monastery where we were accosted by some young monks who wanted money from us. When they realised they weren’t getting anything from us they were happy to pose for pictures and started messing around as young boys do, pretending to be superheroes with their capes, chucking stones into a tree at a lizard, climbing up and jumping off the pagodas and wrecking the donated flower displays.  

We had seen sunrise, and been told by friends to check out sunset over the town, so we decided we could either sit at a bar and watch it, or cycle 5km to Red Mountain Vineyard to watch it. We agreed to go to the vineyard and we made it with time to spare, so we bought a couple of wines and found a spot with a great view. After one slurp of wine I suggested wine tasting but Baby D was happy to sit and keep the seats, so I went off on my own. There I met Steve, who was on his own so we joined forces for the wine tasting. He’d had a heavy curry the day before so instead of hints of vanilla and subtle blackberry undertones, all he was getting was garlic!

Red Mountain Vineyard

Pagodas at Inle

We re-joined Baby D who had polished off his wine and mine, and was quite happily sitting there with a glazed look in his eyes. We ordered another bottle and relaxed with the sun setting in front of us. The chilled vibe soon disappeared as we realised it was now pitch black and we had 15 minutes to return the bikes, 5km away. Luckily Steve had a head torch because we would probably be dead if not for that! Bikes returned, we went for some food and I finally got round to trying a tea leaf salad which is a Myanmar speciality. It is pickled tea leaves, with cabbage, carrot, roasted nuts and pulses and it was delicious. 

The next day our boatman met us to take us on the lake trip, and we were joined by Steve. We visited the market at Indein and the pagodas there. We went onto a silver making workshop which was interesting, and then a lotus weaving workshop. They split lotus stems to extract the fibres, which are then weaved to make clothing. We moved around the lake stopping of at places of interest such as the floating gardens, the boat building workshop and then for lunch overlooking the lake. It was a lovely relaxing day. After that, we headed back for a sundowner and dinner. We ended up in the night market for wine and cocktails and regretted that the next day as we were up before 6am to take a taxi to Mandalay via Pindaya Cave. 

PIndaya Cave

Slightly hungover and after a horrendous bumpy drive, Baby D and I arrived at Pindaya. This is a huge cave where they’ve built a temple. The cave contains over Buddhas donated from all over the world.

Spider at Pindaya

I am convinced that they felt the cave wasn’t big enough of a tourist attraction, so they added 8000 Buddhas in the cave. This obviously still wasn’t a big enough draw so they built a massive Buddha next to the cave. This still can’t have been attracting enough tourists, so they put a huge prince pointing a bow and arrow at an equally large spider at the entrance to the site. That’s what I think anyway. Most random place we’ve been to in Myanmar, and there have been some strange sights.

#myanmar #inlelake #pindaya #redmountainvineyard #inle