From Inle Lake to the end

Inle Lake is a big lake. We boarded two long tail boats that took us around the lake to visit several places.

We passed the floating gardens where they grow mainly tomatoes at the moment. The often change crops after every harvest to get the most out of their “land”.

We went through a couple of villages, that are placed on the lake. All houses are of course on stilts. It looks very well organised with straight “roads”, fenced “gardens” around the houses, shops and of course a temple. 

This is one step further than Venice. 

We visited some workshops for Cheroots (Burmese cigars), silver smith, weaving where they make thread out of fibres in the stems of Lotus plants and also silk.

At one stop they had a sanctuary for Burmese cats and showed the different fish found in the lake.

The last stop was old ruins of hundreds and hundreds of stupas mixed with newer ones. An amazing site.

We travelled back across the lake while the sun set behind dramatic dark clouds, but no rain on us today.

In the evening me and S found a great bar for a light meal. Again it was us and the men in town...

The next morning we left for HeHo airport. During the way we stopped at an old wooden temple and a place where they make umbrellas. 

The airport was a small place run very  manually and the small propeller plane took us to Yangon, the former capital of Myanmar.

A city built for 60 000 people where the population is 6 million, whereof 1.5 in down town. Motorcycles are not allowed in Yangon, so 90% of the cars in the country are here.

Our guide took us around downtown showing some old colonial buildings, and other places of interest, we visited the skybar at Lakeview Hotel for the views, and after being stuck in traffic we visited the big pagoda, that unfortunately was under construction but the area was impressive! 

To end this leg of the trip and put another country behind us we had dinner with the group.

It was now time to relocate to Bangkok, for a days “break” before our final leg starts.