Today was the first of our two day one night trek to Inle Lake! We wanted to do the two nights but apparently it’s too hot at the moment.
Following an omelette each for breakfast at the homestay, we were picked up at 8 am to drive to the start of out trek. We only had to carry a bag with the gear we needed for the duration of the trek, the rest of our luggage was collected to be taken to our hotel at Nyaung Shwe directly. No one else had shown interest in trekking on the same days as us so there was only us and the guide, Sanjae, for the whole trip! Sanjae was a 23 year old Burmese guy who loved football and spent his time trekking and maintaining the families organic farm that they ate from. They only ate meat once per week on market day and the rest they ate from their farm.
There was a drive of approximately 45 minutes to get to the start of the trek. This is normally only 30 minutes, but took longer as we drove past a festival march. The parade of people was incredible! There were many different villages involved and each village dresses in their own costumes for the parade. There is a competition for best dressed so the costumes were extravagant. Towards the end of the parade, there were some people riding horses. These people were becoming monks. Monks in Myanmar are all ages and you can become a monk for a short period of time if you like.
When we started the trek at a local village I was pleased to find the terrain very flat and that our guide set an easy walking pace. The air was smoky due to multiple fires in the surrounding fields. Sanjae explained that they burn all the dry crops in controlled batches to prevent risk of a larger wildfire. The ash from the fires then acts as a fertiliser. The locals also start small fires to burn rubbish. Plastic rubbish :(. Myanmar is quite aware of the plastic problem though and are trying to not become the next Thailand.
The first village had a group of Stupas which we stopped to look at. Sanjae explained that whilst Stupas and Pagodas share the same appearance, Pagodas can be entered while Stupas cannot. Adjacent to the Stupas there was a monastery where the local children were learning to speak Palaw, the dialect used by the villages.
On the way out of the village there was a new bamboo house. Sanjae explained that these usually only take around 4 days (!!!!) to build as the entire village will gather and help, expecting only rice wine and food for those days in return. The house is split into two levels, the upstairs level has the kitchen, sleeping area and visitor / shrine area, whilst downstairs is where the animals are kept overnight. The building of the house, including the food and rice wine, is approximately $400 USD.
Bulls were the most popular animal kept through the villages, as they were used out in the field for work such as ploughing and transport. They are not used for meat but rather sold on when they are too old to continue being used for work. The bulls were tied up with ropes through the nose so that it would hurt if they tried to charge anyone. The most popular animal kept for food was pigs.
And onwards we continued. On the way we passed an impressive Bodhi tree, along many other crops such as banana and avocado trees. The fields were mostly empty and in the process of being prepared for the following week seasons crops, providing some colourful viewing. Sugar cane grows all year round so there was some green stuff around. Apparently this is where the snakes live for shelter.
After a short stint along the road we arrived at another village where we parked up for lunch. At this village they were in the process of building a new block house. It was incredible to see the village spirit in action, there were so many people working on the house! Sanjae informed us that a stone house would take around 1 week to build, at a cost of approximately $1000 USD, or $1300 USD if they chose to install glazed windows rather than bamboo windows. The lunch spread was impressive, they gave us enough fruit for at least five people. This included rambutan, watermelon, bananas, mandarin, apple and grapes. The main fare was fried noodles with vegetables and egg, with a lentil soup on the side. Afterwards we spent around an hour napping on a bamboo bed next to the lunch table, this was much needed after eating so much food in the heat!
From lunch we continued up the hill adjacent to the village. We passed some local men illegally cutting up pine trees. They were doing all the processing by hand with only the help of a chainsaw. In Myanmar it is illegal to cut down pine, oak and teak. Apparently this is common in the villages where the police aren’t around. It’s illegal because teak and oak take so long to grow and pine burns too fast and they risk burning down their bamboo houses.
Once at the top of the hill, we headed straight back down the other side. From the top we could see many villages scattered across the landscape into the distance.
At the bottom of the hill we arrived at another village where we were invited into a locals bamboo house for green tea and snacks. These consisted of fried dried beans with peanut oil, and corn flour strips, similar to bhuja. The host then brought out palm sugar snacks for us to try also! The green tea was brewed with locally grown and roasted tea leaves. It was interesting to see the inside of the bamboo house, it was split into only three areas: the guest area / shrine, kitchen and bedroom. The toilet for all houses is long drop style so located outside separate from the house and communal for many houses.
In the kitchen they cook with fire. Above the fire there is a permanently fixed cast iron arrangement to hold pots and food etc. Dried fish and food other food that can go off is left on the top section so that the heat from the fire stops fungus etc growing, allowing the food to be kept for longer. The cast iron isn’t cleaned – the locals use the ash off this to help with stomach aches.
After our insightful and relaxing tea break, we walked down to the monastery in the same village to play chinlone – the national sport of Myanmar. The game is similar to volleyball, but uses a smaller net and cane ball that can only be hit using your head or feet – no hands! Some of the young monks from the monastery came and joined in so we had a good game of 3 v 3 going. Kyle was immediately a pro, me not so much!
Eventually the heat started to get the best of us so we continued on our trek. This was our last stint before reaching the village we would be staying in for the night. Interesting facts learnt along the way included that there are multiple villages of the same tribe, so the people can marry someone from another village as long as they are of the same tribe, and if a villager is caught stealing their hands are cut off! However Sanjae said he wasn’t aware of anyone being caught in the past 10 years. Some villages have electricity however the village chief turns it off between 6am and 6pm so people still work and don’t watch movies etc.
On our way we passed through a village blasting local music through a loudspeaker. It was so loud we could hear it the whole way across the valley! Sanjae said music is commonly played on the loudspeaker as it used to be done when it was the only speaker in the village to allow everyone to enjoy the music.
Once across the valley we walked up the hill and found the village at which we would be resting for the night.
Our accommodation was a large two story wooden house. There was a shop, bedroom and eating area downstairs, with two more bedrooms and the shrine located upstairs. Downstairs was full of bags of rice from the owners farm. A bucket shower was located outside. There were big gaps in the corrogated sheets around the shower leaving no privacy.
For dinner we had a large selection of food, again a quantity far too high for only two people! It included fried tofu, fish, rice, kale, water cress, cauliflower and souo. Dinner was served with green tea and for dessert we had peanut praline.
Our bed was a thin matress in a mosquito net, it was comfortable enough!
After awakening at 6.30 am we went downstairs to find another huge spread waiting for us. Breakfast consisted of Nutella crepes, heaps of fruit including banana, dragonfruit and rambutan, cake and green tea.
Once we had finished we were quickly out the door ready to start the second day of trekking before the heat became too unbearable.
The first section of the walk was probably my favourite part of the entire trek. This was down through some jungle which had incredible scenery, even the cliffs were nice to look at! A massive bonus was spotting a large group of monkeys on the way. Sanjae said it was only the second time he had seen them and the first time he had seen them clearly – he’s been trekking with Ko Min for 1.5 years! So we were feeling pretty lucky.
From the bottom of the hill the remaining trek to the lake was flat and we wound our way through several more villages and along tracks between fields. Finally we stumbled across a sign requesting a fee of 15,000 kyat ($15) from each of us to receive our environmental passed for the Inle Lake district, we had arrived! Sanjae was pretty skeptical about whether the environmental fee was used for the environment or the governments wives jewellery.
After approximately another 1.5 hours walking, we arrived at our lunch spot and the final stop on our trek. Again, we were presented with another incredible spread, similar to lunch the first day, accompanied with a watermelon juice. This village differed from any we had visited so far as every house was built on stilts! The houses were located right on the edge of Inle Lake and in the wet season the ground floods. When the water reaches the houses, they start to move around using boats!
Feeling full and pretty exhausted (it was extra hot, much warmer than the first day!) we climbed aboard a boat to head across the lake to Nyaung Shwe, our next destination.
In Nyaung Shwe we stayed at the Five One Star Hotel. The hotel was very clean and tidy with a great setup and included breakfast and drinking water. All for only $21 USD total a night! Across the road was a soccer field which had a stage being setup in preparation for the water festival.
After a solid nap and some research on TripAdvisor, we headed to Dosa King for dinner. We had onion bhaji (of course) which came with a tasty spicy dipping sauce additional to the classic tamarind dipping sauce. For mains we had the eggplant curry and chicken korma accompanied with garlic naan and banana lassi. Yum!
Kyley on Tour 