Lake Inle

Friday 25th February

Up very early for our flight to Heho for Lake Inle.( say - in-lay)  On the way there I asked Zor why the flights were all early in the morning, thinking that perhaps it was so that tourists could get started on their sight-seeing.  Not at all. Apparently all the planes in the country have to spend the night in Yangon.  They go out in the morning, do their trips, and come back to the city.   Then at night the same thing – out, complete their flights, and then back to Yangon.  And for each flight there are 3 pilots assigned, with the one who will actually fly told only at the last minute..  That way there is less likelihood of people defecting – certainly not taking the planes with them.

Got to Heho, where we were met by Hti, ( say- tee)  our guide, and another Goodnews representative, who confirmed our return flight.  Again we were impressed by the efficiency of the agency.  On the way into town, we stopped at a paper making stand, where they were using mulberry bark.  Interesting, as we’ve seen other handmade paper operations in France, but they were quite a bit more automated than this one. 

Next stop our hotel, the Amazing Nyaung Schwe.

 http://www.hotelamazingnyaungshwe.com/

  Unlike most people who go to Inle we were not staying on the lake, and began to regret that we had agreed to this hotel in the centre of town.  It was in fact exactly the type of hotel we had said we wanted - small, probably family run, but comfortable.  However, after our three days there we decided that it had after all been a good choice, as we did get to see some of the town.  Small towns in Myanmar are not always terribly interesting – mostly there’s a lot of dust – but still we found things to see.

Before going out onto the lake we stopped at the 5 day market which was very close to the hotel, and which was even better than the one we had seen at Nyaung U.  Flowers, fruits and veg, fish, girls wrapping rice in lotus leaves, cheroots.