Myanmar Countryside
Nyaungshwe, Myanmar
March 20, 2009We had a 5:15 wake up call. Once again, I did not sleep well the night before travel. I am going to have to get over that!
We had our last De (wait for it) Lightful (I hope you caught that one Joe!) breakfast at 6:00 and were in the cab at 6:30. We arrived at the airport at 7:00 for our 8:30 flight. Checking in and security takes no time here. They do not care about liquids, so we were able to keep our water.
We landed in Mandalay first and Bill thought we were on the wrong flight. But, after 15 minutes, a refuel and reload, we were on our way to HeHo airport.
From HeHo to Nyaungshwe it was an hour cab ride that we shared with a German guy to save 10,000 Kyat. It cost us 20,000 Kyat. Nyaugnshwe (New-awn Schway) is a regular town with several inns and restaurants Road Traffic. It is at the Northern mouth of the lake and is where we would need to depart from to explore Inle Lake.
We stayed at Paradise Hotel. It is nothing special, but is clean and has a nice balcony. We had lunch at Unique Suberb Restaurant nearby. I have been the one taking Imodium today, so I just had a banana pancake. It was VERY good. Bill had fried rice that was really good too. It had lots of chicken in it.
We noticed a sign that says there is a Unique Superb travel agency too. The waiter said it is his sister's, Chan Chan, business. We talked to her about arranging a boat tour for tomorrow. We also asked about reservations for Shwe Inn Tha Floating Hotel for tomorrow night. Chan Chan was able to quote us a boat tour and room rate that was cheaper than we had previously, so we accepted. It is going to cost us less for the taxi back to the airport too (17,000 Kyat).
Chan Chan suggested hiring bikes and riding to Maing Thauk this afternoon PreSchoolers getting ready to Sing!. She said it would take 1 1/2 hours to get there. Maing Thauk is on the eastern side of the lake and is partly on land and partly floating. A wooden bridge that connects the 2 areas was built in 2001. In town there is a boy's orphanage, so we took a skipping rope and some stickers. There is also a monastery in town too. I am feeling better, so we took the trip.
Along the way there are oxen, egrets, bamboo and cement homes, rice fields, butterflies, hills and many people and children. It was a nice ride (no dust) even though the road was a bit bumpy. I think these bikes have more comfortable seats.
Along the way an old man who spoke no English tried to talk to us. It ended up he was motioning to the very posh Inle Princess Resort. We gave him one of our bottles of water. We ended up riding to the resort gates and were offered a tour, but declined.
Before we arrived at the village we stopped at a nursery They all came out to wave Good-Bye. It had a Unesco sign out front and there were many toddlers playing. We gave the stickers and the rope to the ladies. The caregivers gathered the children inside and sang a song in both languages for us. They are SO cute. We have some good pictures and video of them. When we were leaving Bill took a picture and showed them the image on the camera. They went wild over that! One boy even picked up the camera on his own when Bill set it down! When we left they said "bye-bye" to us a hundred times!
We arrived at Maing Thauk and rode past the monastery. We turned up a dirt road that led to the wooden bridge. We left our bikes there and walked to the end of the .5 Km bridge. A lady greeted us and took us in a canoe across to her floating restaurant. We had a huge order of fried noodles and some soup.
Our legs were very tired on the way back, but we were able to get back to Nyaungshwe in an hour. After we dropped off the bikes we ran into Jerome and Florence again. They had a nice day of touring the lake in a boat.
I bought a straw hat for 700 Kyat for our boat ride tomorrow.
I started reading my book around 6:00 when Bill decided to have a nap, so I joined him. I woke up at 11 and went back to sleep. Who knows what time I will wake up at!
Pictures & VideosFrom our Resturant on the LakeCountry Home
