Life in Myanmar: Inle Lake and train ride through the Shan mountains

After our first trip to the Inle lake region in november, we returned just after christmas 2016. This time we actually got to see the lake. After our arrival, we spent the first afternoon exploring Nyaung Shwe, the small town situated on the north end of Inle lake, with some hired bikes. Just before sunset we drove up to the Red Mountain Estate Vineyard & Winery, one of the few wineries in Myanmar, where we enjoyed a bottle of Myanmar Muscat while watching the sunset. The next day we booked a full day boat tour that would take us to all the touristy spots of Inle Lake. Apart from the machine-gun-like noise of the small motor of our longtail boat, it was a very nice day with a lot of interesting things to see and beatuiful sceneries to watch.

View from the Red Mountain Estate Winery terrace

Early and quite fresh start of our boat tour

the famous "fisherman picture"..

the actual fishermen fishing..

Lara negociating in burmese in a silverware shop. Burmese speaking foreigners are always an attraction.

floating gardens where they grow some sort of tomato

floating village

parking lot at the market

they know exactly how much weight can be put on their boat...

Shwe Inn Dein Pagoda field, definitely shwe (=gold)!

pagoda field from the nearby hill

sunset over Inle lake

best sign ever. you can watch bird!

After our day on the Inle lake we spent another day in Nyaung Shwe and celebrated the new year at a restaurant near our hotel. They had invited a band from Yangon to play on new year's eve. The band played classic myanmar songs until they were all too drunk to play - at about 11pm. After this we were entertained by the karaoke sound coming from the neighbours place, where a few kids were having the best time and ruining their ears for the rest of their lives. A fun night!

The next day we went to the train station of Shwe Nyaung, the neighbour town, and booked a train ticket to go to Thazi, where we would stay for a night and then continue all the way down back to Yangon. After purchasing the two upper class tickets (2.5$ for the 10h ride) lara went to buy some coffee and snacks for the trip. And then we enjoyed a bumpy and slow train ride that took us all across the shan mountains. The 10 hours we spent on that train comprised amazing landscapes, lots of stops at small villages where the train would turn into a market, all sorts of differen flavours and foods all around - we loved it!!