Inle Lake – "A photo blog!"

Allow me to quickly pick up where I left off:

We rented bikes the following morning, and went out at the crack of dawn.

After the marked, we headed out of the inner city and cruised by at least 5-10 (plus/minus 50) temples. (We even set foot in some of them – surprise, surprise!). Soon, we departed from our luxurious asphalt and let a dirt road show us the way to the countryside and the people living out their (calm?) lives there.

As always (well, maybe), I asked for her permission to take a shot. She looked up, tilted her head to the side and it was clear she did not understand why on earth I would approach her, let alone talk to her while she did the laundry. So I pointed at my camera, we exchanged a smile and I called it an agreement.

This little boy lived right across the slow-paced river and I guess he tried to figure out what we all where doing there. I cracked a smile, he didn’t, we left. Notice to self: I have to stop smiling awkwardly to everyone we meet. However, Jørgen clearly knows more than me about how to get people to smile back at him. To support this claim, I have a ton of evidence, like this one (and the next):

All in all, we biked for nearly 20 kilometres that day. That called for taking the rest of the day off (you know, having a mini-vacation while busy “vacation-ing”). To accommodate this need, we found a splendid restaurant with a fantastic view of the river Irrawaddy. As the sun set, the sky went through a broad spectrum of warm colors, – and we, a broad spectrum of food. Delicious food.

From Mandalay, we went south to Bagan by bus. The driver was, to put it mildly, an aggressive man when it came to honking, overtaking – AND – honking while overtaking (and, I kid you not, overtaking while honking). More times than I could count, vehicles in the opposite lane had to come to a complete stop because WE SURE AS HELL WASN’T GOING TO! His horn conveyed an important message, I’M BIGGER THAN YOU; HERE I COME, AND – THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. Jeez. BEEEP-de-BAAP-dii-BOOOP. No sleep for you, mister.

Our hotel was really nice, situated close to “Old Bagan”. It was not the first (nor the last) to proclaim free wifi access. However, as it turned out, the router, was not in any way connected to the internet (as a rule of thumb, this is always the case in Myanmar). A-okey though; we weren’t there to browse the web, but to explore, climb and wander through the semi-dessert, which was filled-to-the-brim with temples of all sizes.

With (the superbly manly) means of transportation – an electrical scooter (that maxed out at 15-20 km/h), we tumbled into the wilderness head first. Among the many (monstrously) dangerous challenges we faced, perhaps Jørgen getting his front wheel stuck, spinning erratic in the sand, stood out as the most perilous. Or maybe when his battery pack started to decay… and we barely made it out alive… (#Picturesbelowunrelated #notreally)

We came across a vantage point, a tower (kinda easy to spot). After 2000 steps or so, (just kidding, elevator #privilege) we experienced an amazing view. As can be seen in numerous pictures below, the landscape was mesmerizing, especially the way it slowly faded into the all-surrounding white haze.

We found some 10-20 Buddhist monks sleeping / relaxing at the top of the tower, in the shade. They found us interesting to look at, but not quite interesting enough to talk to 😛

Temples are excellent places to take a nap during the hottest part of the day. The 1-4 meter thick stone walls makes it nice and cool inside.

After 3 days in Bagan, we returned to the road with destination Inle Lake. Time estimate: ~9-10 hours. It took 8 hours. How? They had calculated an average of at least one tire change. Real analysis folks.

The mandatory suicide of one of the tires – to keep us on schedule – happened in the middle of absolutely nowhere. However, we had no problem with taking a break from the bus, and went out for a short stroll to stretch our legs and more importantly, empty our fluid containers.

3 Burmese men, patiently waiting:

The next morning, we had a date with the at-most-3-meters-deep Inle Lake, a nice wooden boat – and a lovely, yet way to fancy dressed tour guide. She had by far the best English accent to date.

The morning mist made the first few hours on the lake magical. The water seemed to continue on and on, infinitely far in all directions. The two images below bring back some of that floaty feeling for me. Ah, what is better than a state-funded, culture-preserving fisherman-actor, showing off “the old ways” to the tourists, so that you, i.e. me, can snap a picture of him and his ancient, ineffective fish catching technique? Absolutely love it!