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We woke up in a very cold room as there is no heat in the Myanmar Treasure Resort rooms. I had planned on using the outdoor shower but it was simply too cold to consider this morning. I wonder how the locals deal with the cold temperature in the morning.  Zaw later told me they dress warmly and use charcoal burners in the villages to deal with any early morning chill. Some of the newer homes do have electric heaters to ward off the morning chill. We bundled up and had breakfast. It did warm up quickly once the sun came up.

 

Zaw and our long boat returned to pick us up at 9:30. Today he wanted to take us to a local market that occurs every five days in the Khaung Dein Village, located on the western side of the lake, on land, not over the water.

The market was a 5 minute walk from the boat landing and it was hopping with buyers and sellers of anything you might need or want  (or not need in the case of we tourists)! We wandered through the aisles marveling at the food and goods for sale. As expected this market attracts tourists so there was plenty of opportunity to find “more treasures” to take home. The joke has now begun that we will have to start to discard clothing and shoes to meet our baggage weight limit. We spent a good 30 minutes simply walking through the market with Zaw explaining what we were seeing, and answering our questions.  And I took a ton of pictures of people and things, trying to capture the feel of the environment.

After leaving the market Zaw walked us through the village side streets where we visited local shops processing food goods like pumpkin and sunflower seeds, tofu, bean cakes, rice noodles, pork rinds and other snack food that the locals enjoy. The methods used to process the foods are simple: use the sun to dry the food; burn corn cobs to generate cooking temperatures; use simple tools and cooking implements. All the shops are family owned and operated businesses. Small children wander around as the women worked. We were told the men would be out in the fields or driving the long boats.

Back on the long boat we were taken to another lake village where silversmiths plied their trade. Again everything is done by hand with rather primitive techniques, yet beautiful products are produced and the prices are reasonable, compared to what we have seen in other parts of the world.

While at the silversmith Gerry heard rock and roll music coming from nearby. We asked Zaw if we could explore and nearby we found what turned out to be a wedding. Zaw explained that Burmese weddings are large as the whole village gets invited. At his wedding there were 1,000 guests! We got to see beautifully dressed people arriving, drinking tea while a R&R Burmese band entertained the guests in an outdoor canopied tent. The bride and groom were in a separate reception and we were asked if we wanted to go to see them. We gracefully declined so as to not be disruptive. It was a fun encounter!

Zaw discussed the “long neck” people from the mountain villages and asked if we wanted to meet some. Of course, we said so he took us to a local home where we met  a lady and her daughter who come from that region. It was a National Geographic moment, as we all remember seeing pictures of people with extended necks in the National Geographic magazine when we were growing up. We were told that the first coil of metal was added to a girl at the age of 8, then another at 14 and the final size at age of 20. Supposedly the fixture does not affect their ability to breath or eat but if removed the women would have difficulty holding up their heads :as the neck muscles would have atrophied over time.  I was surprised at how heavy the coil of metal was.

Our boat travel then shifted to one of the big rivers (Indein) that feed the lake. It was a total different feel with tree-lined banks and farm fields. There was still a lot of other long boats plying the river with us. We reached the small village of Indein where we came to visit of the famous temple site (the Shwe Indein Pagoda) in this area. What makes it unique is that the “jungle” stupas are much smaller and more slender than those in Bagan. In this temple complex are there are over 1,000 such structures. No one knows when they were built but speculation is they could date back to BC times.  Most have not been restored but still retain a beauty about them.

We paused for lunch in a local restaurant in Nuaungshwe called Golden Kite,  where the menu featured Burmese (natch) food or Italian.  Guess what we all had? I later found it is considered one of the best restaurants in the area. The owner learned to make oven fired pizzas in Naples, Italy and the tasting platter we had was excellent.  Lunch also included his signature chocolate cashew crepe which was to die for!  It was a fun and tasty stop.

 

After lunch Gerry and I walked up to another cluster of stupas in the area while the ladies sat on the steps by the river, watching to world walk by.  The field of structures reminded me of a cemetery as the temple structures are closely spaced. My pictures do not do justice to the immensity of the temple complex.

We returned about 20 minutes later with pictures and some cool locally made bottle openers made of wood, nuts and bolts. We found our wives happily resting on steps by the dock and we headed back to the boat for the trip back to the hotel for some rest and a shower before happy hour.

It was time for happy hour at the resort to have some more $4 drinks, some new Burmese snacks and watched the sunset, which was not as spectacular as yesterday.

We leave tomorrow for Mandalay. I believe we all will miss this idyllic part of our journey. It was a fascinating place to experience and I am certainly happy I did not follow my first instinct to not include it in our itinerary. To do so would have been a big mistake.

We left the beauty of Bagan and headed for our next destination- Inle Lake. Before getting there I had no idea of what to expect. In fact when planning the trip I questioned whether we should even include Inle Lake in our Myanmar itinerary. Reviews said it was worth seeing so here we go.

It was a short 30 minute flight from Bagan to the closest airport, Heho. When I asked why we are not simply driving there the answer was it was at least an eight hour drive. Obviously the road infrastructure here is not that great.

Surprisingly even on this short of a flight they served us a pastry and a beverage. US Airlines would have simply said the flight was too short to offer beverage service. Not only that the flight was on time!

We were met, as promised, by our new tour guide, Zaw. The first surprise of the visit was we would be driving about 1 hour to the lake shore where we would transfer to a boat to make the 20 minute trip to our hotel.

The landscape has changed. We are in an area of hills and more trees, situated about 2,900 feet above sea level. The view from the plane showed many farm fields, reminding me of a patch quilt.  The road, although a main thoroughfare through the region, was two lanes and driving was not fast.

However the time went quickly and we soon arrived at the “boat terminal” which presented surprise #2.  Our “boat” was a long (~ 30 feet), narrow wooden boat powered by a one cylinder engine with a straight shaft to the propeller. They are called “long boats” and are the main (only?) mode of transport on the water. There are individual wooden chairs for the passengers but we did note there were life vests, blankets and even umbrellas for us. Our luggage was loaded onboard and within minutes we were on our way, via this waterway to the lake proper. We then had a beautiful, sunny, ~20 minute ride, cruising along at about 20 mph on this fairly large(45 sq. mile) shallow (5-12 feet deep) lake.

Surprise #3 was reaching our lakeshore hotel (Myanmar Treasure Resort). It is built over the water with individual cottages for guests located along a wooden boardwalk suspended above the water. Although there is a road to the hotel virtually all the guests arrive by water. We pulled into the dock where hotel personnel helped us out of the boat and unloaded our luggage.  Needless to say our wives really thought they were going to like this place. For the record I felt the same. At first glance, this was a really, really lovely place!

 

We went to our rooms where we were pleasantly surprised by the decor, the canopied beds, a covered veranda overlooking the water AND an outdoor shower! Now we all were sure we would like this place.

We reconvended with our guide to start our exploration of the lake. Surprise #4 soon emerged. Generations of Intha (the local ethnic group) people have lived on this lake and adapted to the ecosystem that it offers. We motored past “floating gardens” where they grow vegetables of all types. The gardens were developed by capturing floating patches of hyacinths, anchoring them with bamboo poles, and gradually building them up with mud from the lakebed, ultimately creating the land they now farmed on-ingenious! This was probably the precursor to hydroponics as we know it today. The various beds are separated by waterways so the farmers can easily get to their fields.

Leaving the farming area we next toured their villages-surprise #5. Their homes are built on stilts over the water-fascinating, to say the least.  To go anywhere you either go by boat or swim. There’s is no walking over to see a neighbor in this village. The homes are laid out in a street fashion but separated by water, rather than concrete.  Electricity is available to them but not all have indoor plumbing. Potable water must be retrieved from centralized water stations located in the village. We could not imagine their lives.

Lunch was at a local waterfront, floating (obviously) restaurant where we again were served traditional Burmese food. Afterwards we stopped (docked) at the local village Buddhist temple to see a rather unique set of small Buddha statues that have been and are continuously being covered with gold leaf by worshipers. What make them unique is that the statues have so much gold on them that they have lost any resemblance to Buddha and now look like round gold colored balls!

We also made two stops in the village to see some local craft people at work. the first stop was at a weaving business where women were making thread from fibers in the stem of the lotus plant (I did not know you could do that), then weaving cloth using a combination of lotus and silk threads. The second stop was at a boat builder to watch them hand-making long boats from teak wood.

It was then back to the hotel so that we could enjoy the evening sunset from the outdoor cocktail lounge that overlooked the lake. It turned out to be a spectacular show of mother nature, enhanced by a hotel employee portraying a local fisherman on the water and posing for pictures for guests. I have included my “Kodak” moment picture from that evening.  Of course the evening was enhanced by the $4 cocktails and free freshly made burmese snacks they were serving on the lakefront deck.

Being isolated and having had another big lunch we simply decided to grab a light dinner at the hotel. There was a featured BBQ buffet tonight and we were not hungry enough for that, but they did offer an ala carte menu that actually looked quite good. Gerry was hungry for a steak and a surf & turf option featuring Australian tenderloin priced at $20 (is that a misprint?)  that looked appealing. I settled for a tenderloin steak sandwich with fries ($12). The steaks were large and even more important, there were really tender. We both agreed they were some of the best we have had in a restaurant. Coupled with a nice bottle of Australian wine (also inexpensive), it made for a great ending of a fabulous day at Inle Lake. Then it was off to bed as we had another busy day tomorrow, exploring more of Inle Lake.