Inle Lake, Myanmar, Part 2: Biking to Tofu Village

Our second day in Inle was a free day!  Best ever.  Our five-person crew decided to spend our day renting bikes and touring the area around Inle Lake.

Cliffnotes of the Day:

• Rented some sweet bikes (complete with unadjustable/dented seats and un-grippy wheels), and rode out of town to the Shwe Yan Pyay Monastery, or Teak Monastery, for short.  It's a monastery made entirely of wood, and is an active teaching monastery for young monks-in-training.

Bike gang - Jo, Clare, me, Clair, and Stephen

The teak monastery - adorable monks looking out the window 

The best part was they allow you to sit amongst the chanting/studying monks. It's so, so cool to get to witness as a tourist

We fit right in obviously

MY FAVORITE MONK CHILD EVER. When I asked to take his photo, he grinned broadly and nodded, but first pulled his book closer so it looked like he was studying 

And then a monk rang a bell and all the monks put their books away and walked to the dining hall for lunch. They all have their own giant metal bowls to eat out of that they carry with them

Wandering the grounds. We also found a room where tiny monks were watching an English TV show that was like American Idol

Then we wandered over to the temple next door, which had a million Buddhas in it

Each Buddha represents a donor who's donated to the temple - their names are below each one

• After the monastery, we biked about 8km (I talk in kilometers now apparently, because that's how far our guide had told us it was the night before).  And I mean biked.  We followed this dirt road for awhile, which was a complete free-for-all for scooters, bikes, people walking, and trucks going both directions - you have to constantly be alert and swerve at the right times.  Our ride took us over incredibly bumpy/gravel-filled roads (my hands are still sore from all the bouncing around we did), and small schoolchildren who shouted "Mingalaba" (hello) to us from the sides of the roads.  Need I mention that the scenery was absolutely beautiful?  Rice paddies and mountains and so much greenery, per usual.  And also incredibly hot, in direct sunlight, and biking (a.k.a. vacation work).  But loved it.
• Stumbled across a sign that said "Viewtop Mountain Pagoda" and a flight of stairs up a side of a mountain, so we detoured and hiked up the stairs to come onto this view:

Beautiful view from the top

• Our group guide had mentioned the day before that there was a village you could ride to that he coined "Tofu Village" because their industry was producing tofu products.  We literally knew nothing about this village (how far it was, what there was to do there, why bother traveling there, the actual name of the village, and other such non-important points), except for the fact that they did something with tofu and that we had to find it. Finding Tofu Village became the end goal.  We came across a fake Tofu Village, where a man tried to tell us his village was the Tofu Village, and led us into this strange little square with souvenirs, and then he tried to take us on a boat ride so he could charge us.  Clair and Julia decided to head back at that point, so it was just down to Clare, Stephen, Jo and I.  
• After much asking and navigating, WE FOUND TOFU VILLAGE.  Totally missable, except for a tiny sign off the side of the road.  It was basically a small house, where a man came walking out offering us to take us on the tofu tour. Last I checked, we did not bike across a million miles of dirt roads to not see some tofu, so we followed him along. 
• The tour involved this man taking the four of us through many different houses and buildings, where villagers were making a ton of food products to bring to market the next day.  There were 22 different food varieties in Tofu Village (I don't know why I keep typing that like it's a proper noun when it's not the actual name of the village...) - some are obviously tofu, but there was also a lot of brown sugar/rice usage.  We got to try everything they were making. It was like a crazy food tour.

This woman is deep-frying tofu

This lady was candying rice balls in brown sugar

This man was deep-frying small airy dough into little popcorn-like things

• AND THEN. THE MONSOON OF THE CENTURY HAPPENED.  We were walking along, when suddenly the skies completely opened up and the most ridiculous downpour of my entire life happened.  It was raining so hard that the streets immediately started to turn into mud rivers (see: town with only dirt roads), and you couldn't see more than 2 inches in front of your face because there was so much water running into your eyes (even with sunglasses on).  Our tofu guide guided us to a tea shop to wait out the rain. It was hilarious because Clare asked our guide how long these storms could last, and he was like "Sometimes all day/night for over a month! You can stay at my house" and then laughed uproariously as the four of us stared at each other in horror

The rain continued without letting up (not even getting less aggressive) for about 45 min.  All we could do was sit in our soaking wet clothes, drink tea, stare out at the rain, and hope for it to stop. 

Soaked in our rain jackets and trapped in the tea house - our guide in the back

• All's well that end's well, because the rain finally let up, and our guide seriously continued with the tour as if nothing had happened and we didn't all look like drowned rats. The tour ended back at the man's house, where he served us more tea.  After it was all over, we biked the (incredibly long, especially in our wet clothes) hour ride back to our city and our hotel.  The worst part was, here we were thinking we had just survived the Great Monsoon of 2015 and escaped being trapped in Tofu Village forever, but when we arrived back to the city we were staying in, it had barely even rained and nobody else in our tour group knew what we were talking about.  
• Our group guide Matt did, however, inform us that the four of us (out of the entire group of 18 people) were the only ones who had made it all the way to Tofu Village. High-five.

Fun Facts of the Day:

• All Buddhist Burmese boys go to monk school between the ages of 7-13 for up to a couple months. This is why there are so many monasteries, and so many young monk boys (identifiable by their bald heads and colored robes) running around Myanmar. After they finish their stint in monk school, they can choose to continue on as a monk for life, or move on to a life outside the monastery.
• About 80-90% of Myanmar is Buddhist
• While Myanmar is getting touristy, it is pretty rare to come across other tourists in so, so many places (i.e. Tofu Village!).  It is so. great.  This also means that you still encounter kids who are excited to see you and will wave shyly, and people who stare at you because you look so different from them.  Love.
• August - October is hard-core rainy season in SE Asia. Pack accordingly.

Inle Lake, Myanmar, Part 1: Wooden Boat Lake Touring

It's rainy season in SE Asia!  Therefore, all the rivers run this lovely muddy brown color.  We spent the day today touring the fab Inle Lake.

Inle Lake

What It's All About:
Inle Lake is Myanmar's second largest lake - there are a handful of cities on the water that are accessible by wooden boats.  The lake itself is kind of thin and reedy - like the Florida everglades, hence the need for smaller boats.

One thing Inle Lake is known for is the traditional leg rowers - the men traditionally row the boats by standing up in the boat and wrapping one leg around the oar to push off and row.  This was historically so they could see down into the water to see where they were going, as the water is full of weeds and plants and is not usually clear.

Also, there are tons of traditional houses and restaurants that are built on stilts in the lake, as well as temples, numerous industries (silver, cheroot, weaving, etc.) that you can access by boat.  We spent the day visiting 5 or 6 different stops on the lake.

Local children rowing

Cliffnotes of the Day:

• We began our day by heading down to the docks and getting into our boats - the boats were long, thin wooden ones (kind of like a dragon boat without the dragon), and powered at the back by a small motor, which our driver used to steer and control the speed.  The motor was tiny; probably similar in size to a snowblower motor or a lawnmower motor - not that I've ever seen or noticed the size of either of these motors.  Each boat had basically a bunch of chairs stuck in them with an umbrella stashed at each one for personal use, if you wished to (the sun was insane).  Riding in the boats was great fun - it's kind of vibrate-y and it's fun watching the driver maneuver around other boats and reeds and down all the tiny inlets of the lake.

Our boat dock

Our boat zooming through the inlet

Weeeeeee

This is kind of hard to see, but this is a traditional leg rower of Inle Lake! You can see the man's leg is wrapped around the oar, which he is dipping into the water to push the boat along. It was wild

• Our first stop on the boat trip was about 1.5 hours away (imagine being on a bouncy, vibrating wooden canoe-thing for that long - sore), to the village of Indein.  Indein is best known for its ancient pagodas (or stupas); which range from the 11th-13th centuries, to modern-day ones built much more recently.  Stupas are a kind of a structure that function as a mausoleum/shrine built by families to house the ashes of their deceased ones.

A monk collecting palm on the walk to the pagoda

And then we arrived at the Indein pagoda!  Here are all the pagodas/stupas

Inside the main temple is a gold Buddha - but only men are allowed inside

A great example of the tons of varieties of stupas at the temple. You can see the incredibly old-school, brick crumbly stupa, vs. the newer silver/gold stupas.

A section of very old stupas

L to R: Clare (England), Will (Canada), Clair (Ireland), Jo (England)

The pretty carved entrance to one of the stupas

The more money a family has, the more intricate they can make their stupas. Some had bells and jangles and windchimes on them

Additionally, the more well-off/important families get to build their stupas larger and closer to the actual temple.  The stupas are typically maintained and passed down through the generations

Super old-school, super crumbly

I liked the old ones

• After Indein and a little lunch at a restaurant-on-stilts in the lake, we headed over to an incredibly sacred (Buddhist) pagoda on the lake called Hpaung Daw Oo Pagoda. This is the main religious site for the people at Inle Lake.  

Approaching Hpaung Daw Oo Pagoda on the right

The centerpiece of the pagoda is these four "golden blobs" - they used to be small Buddha statues gifted by a Bagan king.  Over centuries, so much gold leaf has been rubbed onto the statues by worshippers that the Buddha shapes are no longer visible, and now look like giant golden blobby things.  You can buy gold leaf and rub it on the blobs yourself, but as you can see in the bottom of the photo - ladies are again prohibited.  The 3 guys in our group got to go ahead and do it, however. #rude

• Post-pagoda, we went cruising down to see some of the many industries that are located on Inle Lake. There were about 3-4 stops involved.

Cruising on down to visit some industries

First stop, weaving with lotus root. Did you know you can cut open a lotus stalk, and pull out some fiber-y silky thing out of the middle of it, and then weave with it?!?  Seems like a lot of work, but these women make an entire living out of it

Next stop - visiting the cheroot industry, where ladies were making cigars out of cheroot.  What is cheroot?  No idea. I'm assuming it's a root/plant of some sort??  We got to try a cheroot cigar and it tasted like smoke

Our last stop was visiting ladies of the Padaung tribe, or the long-neck tribe.  These women wear heavy brass coils around their neck as cultural tradition and a symbol of beauty. The coils were SUPER HEAVY

Traditional Padaung tribe ladies weaving

• As we headed on the long journey home in our boats, the skies darkened and we got caught in a torrential downpour. Even the umbrellas provided at our seats in the boat couldn't save us from the sideways sheet rain. We. got. soaked.

A beautiful rainbow that appeared pre-monsoon. SHOULD HAVE KNOWN

Darkening skies

I took a photo of the other boat as it started to POUR for a solid 45-minutes. I kind of love this photo because of how miserable they all look trying to hide against the rain with their umbrellas

• The rain slowed as we approached home (of course) - we dragged our soggy selves to a restaurant called Viewpoint to have a (well-deserved) cocktail and watch the sunset.

Soggy crew (Clare, Clair, Jo, Stephen, and I) + cocktails

Watching the sunset

Rando photo of a kitten party at the local "bar" later

• It was, all in all, an incredibly long, but amazing day.

Fun Facts of the Day:

• “Hello” in Burmese is “Mingalaba” (again, not spelled in any way correctly) - I remember it like “mingle” + “ahh” + “ba”, and it is a super fun word to yell out to people as you pass them by on the road.
• No power converters needed in Myanmar for U.S. plugs. Magic.
• In Myanmar, many women rub a local type of sunscreen on their face called tannica - it involves rubbing together a special kind of wood and water, which creates a kind of light tan paste that they usually apply on their cheeks in certain patterns.  It's quite common to see, and local women believe it keeps their skin light (since lighter skin in Asia is considered more beautiful. Which means with my sweet traveler's tan, I am a fail at beauty).  We got to try some out at one of the industry stops - a little is visible on my cheeks in the photo with the Padaung women. 

Kengtung to Inle Lake, Myanmar: The Sketchiest Airport Ever

Internet! The slowest internet in the entire world, yet still - glorious internet!

Cliffnotes of the Day:

• This AM, we took a flight from Kengtung to Inle Lake for the next leg of the trip. Seeing as how Kengtung is a tiny, tiny city (I mean, I've previously mentioned there were only 2 restaurant choices for dinner.....) - the airport itself was quite an experience. I'm actually a little surprised Kengtung even has an airport.

Our bus pulled up a small dirt road to this structure. THIS WAS THE ENTRANCE TO THE AIRPORT.

Oh, and here is their extra tight security. Some of our group didn't see the metal detector and walked right past it into the room - the security man had to come get them to make them go through.

The departure room of the Kengtung Airport

And here's the plane!  It was the only plane in the entire "airport", but was actually kind of legit - plus it was a 35-minute flight and they served beverages AND peanut butter cookies AND candy.  Asian airlines are where it's at

Soaring over Myanmar

Here's how they wheeled the steps on over to the airplane after landing

• Upon arrival at Heho Airport, it was a 45-minute drive to Inle Lake

Our tour guide told us we could get out and take photos with this bridge. I have no idea what it's called or why it's cool or what is going on with it, but if you tell me to take a photo, I will do it

And then we arrived at Inle Lake!  You have to pay for a ticket to even enter the area (about $10), and then you can head to any of the cities near the lake

• We are staying in this adorable hotel by Inle Lake called Paradise Hotel, where all the rooms are bungalows named after flowers.  I'm sitting on the patio of our little bungalow (which is named Rose) as we speak 
• Our group collectively decided to head to a local winery before dinner to go watch the sunset - it's called Red Mountain Estate and was started by a local Burmese with the assistance of a French winemaker.  The winery imports the grapes, machinery, oak barrels, etc. from all the fancy parts of Europe (apparently the best oak barrels come from Hungary? Who knew), so everything is super legit there

The center of Myanmar....OR FRANCE?!

The winery was incredibly pretty. Per usual with wineries

Enjoying a glass of wine - which I hate to admit, I did not love. Granted, I'm probably the least fancy wine person ever (I choose wine bottles based on how cool the label looks; bonus points for animals), but I thought all of the wines had a tiny tiny hint of wet swimsuit flavor

Our view of the sunset - AMAZE

PANO MODE

Artistic, because I am an artistic person

And then there was the most majestic sky as we were leaving the winery

My new mate Claire (all the English-speakers on the tour are from the UK, and I find myself accidentally picking up some of their weird British words and intonations out of nowhere)

The skies were insanely pretty. SE Asia is currently in rainy season so our guide was saying that he never sees sunsets like this