Day 41: Kalaw to Inle Lake

-Our new guide Emma met us Wednesday morning prepared for a five-hour trek through the Burmese countryside. She previously had plans for us to visit Pindaya cave but we opted for the hike instead. It was nice to be walking after doing so much lounging around. We walked to a hill tribe on top of a mountain where they harvested limes and mandarin oranges. We were also offered some local tea but it wasn’t tea season yet so wasn’t the best. We were lucky because the rain wasn’t scheduled until the afternoon. It would have made hiking infinitely more difficult.

-We learned why the tractors around here, the main mode of transportation in the countryside, lack any covering for the engine. Apparently there are higher taxes on the vehicle if the engine is covered. The farmers lovingly name the contraptions ‘machines.’

Flattening some leaves for rolling tobacco:

Drying some tea leaves:

One of the walls:

Resting in a little house:

Scene from the hike:

       
  -Lunch was a local delicacy of chicken soup and watercress salad. I was a big fan of the salad, not so much of the soup. We also tried jackfruit for the first time. It had an interesting bubblegum like flavor.

            

           -The drive to Inle Lake, our next destination, was two hours long but filled with lovely sights of the countryside and surrounding mountains. The lake is in between two mountain ranges and is 19-miles long. It is filled with floating islands that are farmed mainly for tomatoes. We took a 30-minute boat ride to our hotel. Fishermen were busy catching their fish for the day and practicing the famous one-legged rowing. It was so surreal to be boating in between patches of plants. You didn’t feel like you were in the middle of a huge lake. This part of the trip was our one splurge- a gorgeous hotel literally on the water. Once we settled in we just enjoyed the view and watched the beautiful sunset.

On the river on the way to Inle:

Beautiful view from the hotel: