Myanmar Post 5: Inle Lake

Well here is our final post from Myanmar, location Inle Lake. We spent two full days here at the lake, which is situated nearly 3000ft above sea level. Due to the altitude and being in the northern part of Myanmar the weather was cool and refereshing. We also received a break from the heat and humidity from the week before. We arrived in the late afternoon from Bagan. This bus ride was one to remember.

We woke up at 3:00am expecting the bus to arrive at 3:30am, but of course it didn't and were not picked up until 4:00am. After that we had to pick up two other groups of travelers and spent an hour at a bus station waiting for the bus to fill up. At 5:30am we finally started on our journey. Let me back track a little and describe the bus we are now riding. First and most important, no air conditioning. Second, the bus was 7' wide; in between were crammed four seats and an aisle. Third, half of the curtains on the bus were falling off and most of the fans did not work either. Now this bus ride lasted around 13 hours, and the road we followed was a winding, dirt, extremely bumpy road. I don't remember the numbers exactly at the moment, but at the time I figured out our average miles per hour were less than 19. Every bus ride we went on in Myanmar someone was getting sick. At this point in our trip Jessica and I had purchased some Dramamine so we were good on that front, however the lady across the aisle from us was not doing too well. She regurgitated the contents of her stomach at least three times, but the worst part was that she used the curtan as a napkin to clean off her face after the "incidents".

Finally in the late afternoon we finished our bus ride only to find out that we needed to ride for another hour in the back of a pickup truck to get to the lake. Even after all the time and work it took to get to the lake, Jessica and I were very happy that we took the time. Inle Lake was one of the most spectacular places that we visited in Myanmar. Below are some pictures of where we went while we were there.

This is the road to and from the lake, and was one of the better dirt roads that we had been on.

Jessica and I rented bikes one days and rode partially around the lake and up to a temple. An hour into our bike ride, Jessica mentioned that she didn't remember that bike riding was so hard. She was also a bit embarrassed about her trouble, so we stopped and I took a look at her bicycle only to find that the bearing on the front wheel was totally destroyed. The wheel barely turnd and it wobbled all over the place while it turned. Jessica and I switched bikes and I rode hers back to the bike shop and we asked for a new bike. (Editor's note: $1 a day to rent a bike. Not bad!)

When we arrived at the temple we were attacked by a horde of little puppies. All very cute and barking with little puppy barks. Their mother looked on unhappily, but she let us pet the puppies.

At Inle Lake there is an old monastery, and at this monastery they train cats to do jumping tricks. People call this place the Jumping Cat Monastery. We watched two shows and they were a lot of fun. They also told us that some sort of disease had been through the monastery a couple of months before our arrival which killed off most of the cats. Most of the cats that remained were kittens who were removed from the monastery when the disease came through.

A picture of Jess during our boat tour of the lake.

A picture of me during our boat tour of the lake.

A small canal off to the side of the main road approaching the lake.

Next to the temple was a really nice hotel, which also had rooms right out on the lake.

Jessica's "new" bicycle.

ALL of the steps to the top of the temple.

Looking out from the temple at the lake.

More pictures from the side of the road.

Views from the lake as we took our boat tour.

Jessica and I purchased the "upgraded" boat tour, which cost $5 more, and we were take up small side streams up to another old temple area similar to Bagan. Every few hundred feet there were hand-built dams in the canal to keep the water level high enough, and it was amazing to charge through the opening with the boat we were on.

Some local wild life. What we were not able to get pictures of were the hundreds of dragon flies that were hovering in the air.

Pictures of the lake.

Well that was our trip to Inle Lake. Jessica and I were sad to go, especially knowing that we were going back to hot and muggy Yangon.