Inle Lake — Mi Mundo es Tu Mundo

Too much beauty, too little time.

I felt like our 1.5 days in Inle Lake covered many things, but the serenity of this city deserves more time. Several days at the least to truly relax and disconnect here.

After enjoying the desert of Bagan, we headed to Inle Lake by carpool van. These can be booked via your hotel or hostel and are almost the same cost as the bus, however you get picked up in front of your hostel. Our van arrived late morning, and we spent about 5 hours in the car driving slowly along the windy hill roads to Inle Lake. We made a pit stop in a little more than halfway to have lunch at a small restaurant and arrived around mid afternoon.

Upon arrival, it became apparent quickly that Inle Lake was not a city - just the name of the lake. It had several towns/villages around the lake, with the main one being Nyaung Shwe. It didn’t have any hostels that stood out to us, so we went with a small, boutique hotel on Booking.com called Golden House Hotel. Our room for two nights and $25 had two beds, a private bathroom, air-conditioning, wifi, free bike rentals, AND an amazing breakfast. By far the best we had in Myanmar.

Since it was already afternoon, we decided to take it easy the remainder of the day and save most of the sightseeing for the next day. The city centre doesn’t seem like it has much, but we did find a beautiful temple marked on Maps.me, Yadanar Manaung Pagoda, so we started there. We were surprised to see that the pagoda’s architecture differed so much from those that we had seen in Yangon, Bago, and Bagan; instead of rising smoothly, these temples had almost stepped layers in geometric shapes. Surrounding the main pagoda are many trinkets and historical items (paintings, costumes, dishes etc.) on display. There are many other temples in the area, however we only had time to visit this one.

Many of the temples we visited had these types of lights around the Buddhas.

As soon as we left the temple, it started raining, eventually pouring which meant time to hide out in a restaurant and eat an early dinner! Ginki Nyaung Shwe Restaurant was close by and had a comfortable patio that allowed us to be outside but covered from the rain. Despite the fact that they got Cici’s order completely wrong (language barrier I’m assuming) the food was great. The place didn’t seem particularly local, as everything was in English and many dishes weren’t Burmese, but it was definitely a sweet spot to hang out away from the rain. At night, they are supposed to have live music , and although I’m sure it’s a good time, we were too tired to return at night.

Once the rain stopped, our goal was to find a good spot to watch the sunset from. The best places seemed a little farther away, but we did find this place marked on Maps.me that was a small home/hut area with only a few tables. It was actually closed when we arrived, but the man who owned the place lived in the connected home and was so excited to see us looking for the place. He insisted we enjoy a beer on the balcony and even provided extra beer and some peanuts on the house! (we left him a big tip after :) ). Despite the banana plant in the middle of the vista, the views were beautiful! Mosquitos galore though, I’d recommend bringing some spray. Located here.

The next morning consisted of an early breakfast on the patio - it was the best we had in Myanmar. Eggs, toast, tea, juice, and plenty of fruit on the side. So worth staying at the hotel for this.

The shuttle to our night bus would leave in the evening that day, so the plan was to ride the bikes around exploring until it was time to go. We stashed our bags with the hotel, grabbed two bikes and left for the day. One of the prettiest bike rides of my life! The road/paths you take are in beautiful green forested areas with many farms and have views of the lake, canals, and rolling hills the entire time.

We left the hotel with our bikes and headed to the west side of the lake. The plan was to explore that side, then get a boat across to the east side, then make our way back to the hotel from there. Our first stop were at some “hot springs” called the Khaung Daing hot springs. I put hot springs in quotations, because these aren’t natural pools, but manmade pools filled with water from hot springs. We didn’t partake in the experience because we didn’t bring swimsuits and didn’t want to pay, but it seemed like a nice place to spend an hour or so relaxing.

Across from the hot springs was a temple up on the hillside that our hotel concierge pointed out to us on the map. It also had housing for monks, so perhaps it was considered a monastery as well (despite the fact that we saw zero monks). The temple wasn’t anything new, but the views from the temple of Inle Lake and the villages were beautiful.

Stairs going up to the temple with what I am assuming are sayings in Burmese. Perhaps teachings of Buddha.

Once back downhill from the temple, we went over to where we saw a mark on Maps.me to cross the lake via boat. As soon as we pulled into the near area, a man found us and asked if we wanted a ride across the lake. We said yes, but had to negotiate pricing as the hotel attendant gave us the price of what the boats should charge versus what they’ll try to charge foreigners. Luckily, we were able to get a fair price, and the boat was big enough to carry us and our bikes very comfortably.

Once on the other side, we had a long walk along the dock to get back to the land. There are a few places to eat on this dock full of guests, but we unfortunately didn’t have time to stop and check them out. It was clear that this side was much more developed and tourist friendly. Many signs were in English, and there were many more establishments lining the entire way back. The streets were also mostly asphalt rather than dirt like we experienced on the west side.

Some of the trees on this side were a bright red, so beautiful.

On our bike ride home, we had about an hour to kill, and it had started raining, so we decided to stop for food. We couldn’t believe it when we found a Dim Sum joint!! We had both been dreaming about Dim Sum for a couple weeks now, so it was wonderful when we finally found a restaurant that served it! I highly recommend lunch here; everything we ate was delicious. Not as good as Din Tai Fung, but it definitely came very close!

Once we arrived back at the hotel, we waited for half an hour for our shuttle to come pick us up to take us to the bus. The hotel reception was kind enough to even let us shower in one of the empty rooms so that we’d be fresh for the trip. The next 12 hours was a complete mess! Our bus that was supposed to take 10 hours took 14+. The bus broke down multiple times on the way to Yangon. After the first 5 hours, I would say it was stopping every 45 minutes to an hour. It was a disaster. Cici and I had a flight to catch the next day at 10am… We booked it because the bus was supposed to arrive at 5 am, giving us plenty of time to make it to the airport! Little did we know, the bus would arrive late enough to miss our flight.

When it became clear that the bus wasn’t going to make it in time, the two girls in front of us helped us hitch a ride into Yangon. We were only 50 or so miles from Yangon, but things were moving way too slowly. After 15 minutes of holding our thumbs out while handymen were working on the bus, a family of 13 pulled over to see if they could help us. The family spoke ZERO English, we spoke ZERO Burmese, and this was the hardest conversation. We were imitating airplanes with our arms to try and signify that we needed to go to the airport, and it took some time for the meaning to come across. One of the guys from the bus came by to try and help, but it was still very difficult. After 10 minutes of miming, we hopped in the back/bed of the truck and got going…only hoping we were headed to the right place.

As I said before, this one car probably had 13 people in it. The father and 2 boys were up in the front, and there were 10 women and children in the back. The car was built similar to a Songthaew, but the back was entirely flat instead of having benches. The luggage also came with us. Oh, and there was no barrier preventing you from sliding off the back end of the truck. I was scared we’d go over a bump and 1 of the kids would fly out! This was one of the most interesting experiences I had in my life. I may have been with a friend, but we were truly out of our comfort zone, not entirely sure if we were going the right way, couldn’t communicate with anyone in the truck, so tired, and very stressed, but we managed to find a way to laugh about it the entire time. We knew we were likely to miss our flight either way, but we also knew we could only control so much. This family was so sweet. The women smiled at us so much almost in an effort to talk to us knowing we wouldn’t be able to fully understand each other. After some time on the truck, the women got some snack out to feed the kids and demanded we have some. Knowing the food was for the children, we didn’t want to take any, but they kept insisting so we eventually gave in and had a few crackers. We also got our snacks out to share with them as well. One of the girls gave us beaded bracelets, and wouldn’t let us say no. We were so touched by this act of kindness. These people were so much less economically less fortunate than us, but were still offering goods to us that probably meant something to them. We started to think of things we could offer. Cici is an artist and was able to quickly find some colorful sketches she had done and offered those and some markers to the kids. The mom lit up at the gift! I started to reach for my bag to look for something I could offer, but as I did, the truck came to a stop and it was our time to get off.

Hmm, it seemed that we weren't at the airport, so we were pretty confused for a few minutes. The father helped us unload our things and then called over a taxi to take us into the airport itself. Phew! We were almost there. We tried several times to offer gas money to the father, but he adamantly rejected our offer. We spent the next few hours in shock that this whole event had taken place. This family stopped, slowed their trip down, allowed strangers into their car, and gave us things out of the goodness of their hearts. It is one of the moments that will always stick with me and motivates me to do more for others on a daily basis!

Needless to say, we missed the flight. We arrived at the counter 5 minutes after take off, and approximately 0 people were at the counter. Oh well, time to come up with a plan B!