Oh Beautiful Burma...and Inle Lake

WOW! What a beautiful place I had the opportunity to spend 4 relaxing, fun and blessed days! We arrived in Myanmar on Saturday night but the customs took 4 or so hours, so we were not planning to let anyone off the ship that night! The ship was cleared the next morning at 0430 for anyone who wanted to get an early start. Our trip to Inle took off from the ship at 0930 and we were off to the airport for our flight to Inle Lake. Our group of 61 was immediately divided up into 2 groups and other than a few spots, we never saw the 2nd group again. We immediately fell in love with Uncle Winston, who would be our tour guide from the beginning to the end... anyone ever wanting to come to Burma, let me know and I will out you in touch with the best tour guide ever!
The flight was short and we arrived to buses and about an hour ride to Inle Lake. We then boarded 4-5

person motorized canoes, which would be our mode of transportation for the rest of the time there. Our first stop was Ann's restaurant on the lake...from there, we went across the absolutely stunningly beautiful lake. There were several times where I found myself in tears of joyful serenity~I just could not get over the fact that I was here, on this beautiful lake in a 4 person boat with Theresa, JB and Tim-3 amazing people who I had the chance to share this with along with 27 great students! This would turn out to be an amazing experience-one that now goes to the top 5 list of worldly adventures for me! Here are a couple of shots to get you into the spirit of my spirit at that moment...

From there we went to canoe by the Inndein Unique temple pagoda and then we pulled up to our floating hotel for the next 3 nights-

OH MY GOODNESS...take a look...this was the picture of the next 4 days of riding around in the marsh on these boats, pulling up to houses, silversmith's, pagodas and monasteries, boat races and trekking that were mostly built on water...

The second started with the boat races that we happened to hit on the last day of the festival-pretty festive and full of people-this was definitely the most people we saw the entire time there because everyone in all of the neighboring "water villages" came to see the final races. From there we went to a cigar factory and to visit the Inn Paw Khone village to see silk weaving. That day, we also got to go on a "traditional" canoe ride, which is what most of the locals rode around on...the amazing part of this was the way in which they steered and powered their boats with
one leg, balanced on this skinny canoe, while many times pulling up fishing lines, fish baskets or getting themselves across this huge lake...the funniest part is that we could not even do this on dry land, let alone balance and do it on the water! AMAZING! The day ended with a stop at the jumping cat monastery, which I must say was a bit disturbing-I am not sure what the significance was, but for a cat lover, it looked borderline abusive-I only stayed to see one cat jump and left to check out the amazing Buddha shrines that were in this monastery. Check it out...

Other than the terrential downpours that came and went, the skies were mostly cloudy with a few exceptions of sunny moments...come to find out later that the town of Inle itself was flooded most of the time, as there were several groups that stayed on land that dealt with floods everywhere...of course living and being on water, we were never really aware until the last day on the way back to the airport-photos later in the blog on that!
The next day was a visit to the Mine Thauk Village orphanage, a food donation at the Mine Thauk Monastery where we participated in feeding the local monks and a soft trek which turned into a 4 hour lost hill climb for those who went-Theresa, JB, a student Kelly and I decided that we were going to go back to the town, visit a silversmith and enjoy the afternoon at the hotel...much better choice come to find out later, as they lost people on the mountain and spent a great deal of time trying to find them!!! The morning was very intense for me, between meeting these beautiful children and spending time with them and then feeding the young boy monks at the monastery~ I needed a break and it was a wonderful one! The last dinner and evening at the hotel included some traditional Shan Dances, which culminated our time at Inle Lake.

I also got to spend some time the last afternoon speaking to the owner of the hotel, Ms. Ann, who grew up in the village and saw the vision of this hotel when she was a small child-she built this on her own about 10 years ago and has succeeded at creating a place where tourists can come and experience the local living, with a few added amenities like running water and electricity and screens on the windows so the gheko's stay out...I will definitely come back and would recommend this to anyone who wants to head to Burma-what a beautiful place.

The last day had us practically "trekking" back through town, as the roads had turned to lakes during our stay on the water-the ride to the airport was an adventure, as several times, we thought we would end up either on the side of the road or surely in the water stuck...but we made it safely and flew back to Yangon. Here is the same road when we arrived and on our way out!

In Yangon, we got to stop at a glass blowing factory, that turns out to export to Pier One and other such places-all created by hand one by one in this huge factory. We had lunch at the local shee shee hotel, where many folks stayed who did not travel~it was almost a sereal experience to come back to a 5 star hotel and have lunch with clean linens and white cloth napkins-other than the food being excellent, I was ready to be back at Inle! A little time at the local crazy scott market, with chatski's galore, a quick walk through China town and the final stop at the amazing Shwedagon Pagoda, making Yangon famous and we were done for our 4 days in Burma... I even learned that I was born on Saturday and did a blessing to myself and my family in a buddist tradition at the Pagoda.

I have not spoken much about the goverment situation here, although we have heard so much about what has been happening here over the past 18 years or so, my experience in Inle Lake with the local people in a beautiful environment much far overode the feelings I have about how the government works and keeps the Burmese people down. We ended the journey with bringing Winston on the ship to tour and visit-this was his dream and it became an emotional end to an amazing trip-because of my position, I was able to get him on the ship at the last minute~here are some of us with him at dinner on the ship......perhaps we can talk about the government when I get home...but for now I leave you with Burma, oh beautiful Burma!
love, ro