Kalaw to Inle lake

We left Pyin Oo Lwin on a direct nightbus to Kalaw where we arrived at 4am in the morning with hardly any sleep. As many people had recommended us the Golden Lily Guesthouse for various reasons we went to knock on their doors at dawn. As predicted we were able to check in already without a surcharge to catch up some sleep. We got up at lunchtime and after an ice-cold shower (still don't know how other people managed to get burning hot water) we went to the reception to get some information for the trek.

We were welcome by Robin, an Indian guy in his mid 50ies who explained us the itinerary, the daily walking distances, what to bring and the prices. He emphasized that he was running these treks since Myanmar opened up in 1996 (he proudly showed us the guestbook with an entry dating back to '96) and that he had his own routes through the forests and was avoiding the 'tourist highways' between Kalaw and Inle Lake. It sounded great for us and on top Robin told us that he himself would be our guide, so we booked the trek for the next morning.

After lunch we explored the tiny center of Kalaw a bit: we visited the splendid golden stupa, watched the locals at the busy market and passed by a monastery where young monks tried to keep their kites up in the sky. We bought some fruits and snacks for the trek and packed our daypacks for the 3 days journey. Our big backpacks were transferred to Inle Lake for us so we could pick them up upon our arrival. We went to bed early to be fit for the first 20km the next day.

The next morning we met the group that we would spend the coming days with: Kilian, the chicken of the group with his sweet 18 years from Bavaria, chatty Oliver from Denmark (not too much older) as well Kale and Alida, our relaxed Aussie mates, and a couple from the French part of Switzerland (forgive us, we forgot their names already :(((). Alida was around our age while the three boy were 10 years younger than us, so we had a great time fooling around and playing parents (us obviously) and the kids (the boys).

On the first day we crossed Kalaw and headed out south to the rice fields and forests. Robin had tons of information for us, mainly about the plants around, but all we can remember from the thousands of plants is ginger (which we knew before), tumeric (which we knew before), pomelos (which we knew before) and one plant that smells like a mix of citrus and mint - nice to use as perfume on sweaty days -, but hey, we neither remember its name nor what it looked like ;).

As promised by Robin we walked through the bush where we did not see any other soul that day. We crossed a little hill with view on a huge tea plantation and mandarine trees to reach a tiny village where we stopped for lunch. Then we descended the hill on the other side, walked through a little capsicum plantation and continued our way for a good 2-3 km on the train tracks. In case you are asking yourselves: yes, there were still trains using this route, but probably only twice a day and so slow that there was absolutely no danger for us pedestrians. We left the tracks without seeing a train and continued our way through some local villages.

When we reached the last village for the day the sun had already set and it started to get dark. We were all a bit tired and lazy, but we still decided to take a quick "shower" behind the house as we had been sweating quite a bit. Armed with soap, towel and our flip flops we started to pour cold water from a bucket over our arms and legs. Then we immediately put on a warm layer as it was getting freezing cold during the night. Dinner, some conversation and we headed to bed as Robin wanted us to get up at 5:30 the next day to be able to leave around 6:30 - 7:00.

We first thought he was joking, but no, he was not. We got up at 6:00 in the morning, it was still freezing cold outside, had breakfast and hit the road for another 24km day. As soon as we started walking and climbing to the ridge of the surrounding hills we got warmer and warmer and once we reached the top and the sun was fully out everybody removed fleece pullovers, beanies, scarfs etc. We had great views on the valley below and walked past tons of chili fields on the way that were ready to be harvested. We saw lots of local women and kids with baskets on their backs picking bright red chilis. In the villages we were stunned by seeing that all the gardens were full of chilis spread out to dry in the sun. Just by passing by the smell of the spicy chilis was strinking us.

We had samosas, Shan noodles and fresh fruits for lunch in a small town and carried on walking under burning sunshine. We passed more chili fields and Robin told us that the locals usually only had a window of around 2 weeks to pick all chilis from the fields. Given the size of the fields and the number of chili plants we imagine this is terribly hard work and we did not envy the workers for their jobs. We passed some crystal clear rivers with drinkable water, tried to help a truck that got stuck in the riverbed, made things only worse and carried on to another area of rice terraces and limestone cliffs before we arrived at our homestay for the second night.

Same procedure as last day: a quick "shower" and the kids had already started drinking beer in the last remaining sun's rays. That day a group of French girls joined us and it was an animated and lively evening. The night was again freezing cold and we were happy to sneak under the blankets later on. When we woke up at 6:00 the next morning Moni found a little visitor cuddled up against her on the blanket: one of the kitties of the house. And it was always like that: 10 people in the room and the cat chose the only person with a cat allergy :).

The third morning was equally chilli, a bit foggy and very humid, which gave the monastery we passed a very mystical appearance. After about an hour, however, the sun was back out and it got warm again. The last day, only one road was leading to the lakeside so this time we met quite a lot of other groups on the way. We passed by a local school where the kids were playing football in their flip flops and school uniforms until the teacher arrived and continued another 2 hours on a gravel road to reach Inle lake.

As we arrived on the southern end of the lake, we had to take a boat to reach the little township of Nyaung Shwe where all the backpacker accomodation was located. After lunch we hopped on the small wooden longtail boat and enjoyed the ride through the canals of what looked like little Venice. There were lots of villages on and in the water, loads of silver and goldsmiths and other craft workshops. We stopped at one of the houses to see the long-necked ladies who are carrying heavy metal rings around their necks. They start with the first rings at the age of 14 and continuously add rings as soon as their necks can take another one. The atmosphere in there was a bit peculiar and we did not feel too comfortable. We had the impression of being in a zoo looking at some very rare creatures and the women themselves immediately stopped working when we arrived and were sitting still for us to take pictures.

Soon after we crossed the lake itself and reached Nyaung Shwe at around 15:00. We picked up our big bags and went straight for a shower at our accomodation. Later on we met our group again for dinner and a couple of drinks during a long-lasting happy hour :).

The next day we took it easy: laundry, a bit of planning for Indonesia; after all we were the 14th of December and wanted to go to Indonesia around Christmas/New Year and did not yet know excatly where we wanted to go and of course did not have any flights booked. So we spent our morning on research and had figured out where to go and how to get there. As a treat for the hard work we rented some bikes and cycled a bit out of town to a small and cozy restaurant in the middle of nowhere, set in a pretty banana tree plantation and serving wonderful fresh salads (tealeaf, avocado, ginger,...) and fruit juices. Avocados are available pretty much everywhere in Myanmar and we heard that the locals did not really use the avocado (not indiginous to Myanmar), but used to feed it to the pigs until they realized that Western tourists love avocado salads, smoothies and dips. So now they feed it to the tourists :).

After lunch we rode our bikes to the Red Mountain Estate Winery. Yes, you read correctly, there is a winery in Myanmar producing their own wine (apparently there are 3 wineries in the the country so you can always claim you are among the top 3 properties in Myanmar :D). Thank you to Moni's parents who read an article about Myanmar in the Austrian newpaper and wrote us immediately that we can do wine tastings there.

The property was nicely set on a little hill amidst some vinyards with a huge terrace overlooking the lake. We grabbed a table and took a first glass of chilled white wine each. We had a first sip of our own glass, then a sip of the other's glass and could not really decide which of the wines was worse :))))). It was quite acidic, but we finished it nonetheless and got another glass of red wine each. It was not much better, but we still enjoyed holding a proper glass of wine in our hand while watching the sun set over lake.

And for a finish - yes we did it the other way round - we went to the tasting room and did the wine tasting including three red and one sweet white wine and a bit of cheese and bread. As already said before, the wine is really not exceptional, so don't go there hoping for a quality tasting, but you go there for the views and the sunset and we still had lots of fun. Just tried to imagine how much fun we would have had if the whole group had gone up there to share a couple of bottles together - hillarious!
At night we again went out for dinner together with the rest of the group and ended up at the same bar drinking beer and mojito for happy hour prices.

The next morning we went to buy a night bus ticket to Bagan together with Alida and then we shared a boat with a Spanish and a German girl from our guesthouse (to save costs). It was a daytour bringing us to various points of interests around the lake.
We started off by seeing a bunch of local fishermen and admired their fishing technique: they were standing at the front of their wooden long tail boats, holding the paddle clamped with knee and foot and rowing the boat with the leg. This allows them to have their hands free to operate with the fishing net and the long conical shaped fishing basket. As the lake is not very deep they watch out for prey from the boat and put the fishing basket in the water to catch the fish inside and then spear it through the small opening on top of the basket. Quite an impressive way to catch fish, isn't it?

The boat drove past some "floating gardens", a massive piece of soil in the middle of the lake which is home to the larget tomato production in Myanmar. We passed some fishermen's villages built on stilts in the water and then our boatdriver brought us to a traditional lotus and silk weaving workshop. We saw how they extract the fiber from the lotus plant and watched some women weaving traditional clothes, scarfs and blankets with old manual weaving machines. The next stop was a tobacco factory where we experienced how the local women roll 600 cigars a day, all with organic products.
We were allowed to try some flavoured cigars, one with banana and one with honey & anis. We really liked the sweet taste and smell and bought a pack of 25 banana flavour cigars for no money.

After lunch in one of the floating restaurants we carried on the the very southern end of the lake again, to the village of Inthein, a magical place which was packed with lots of little stupas in white and golden colour. We wandered around for about 1 hour and then headed back to the boat. As it as already late afternoon we did not have time anymore to do another monastery on the lake and headed back to arrive before dark. We saw the sunset from the boat, went for a quick dinner and then the pick up for our night bus journey had already arrived.

After the beauty of Inle Lake, we looked forward to see if Bagan was as special as we had imagined it. If you want to know as well, stay with us and wait for the next article which will provide a clear answer.

We are always happy to get news from Europe, so please don't hesitate to drop us a quick comment or message.

Cheers,
Moni & Alex

* P.S. The word "Myanmartian" does probably not exist and was created by Kilian and Oliver, our kids, so the copyright for this word belongs to them ;).