Bike ride near Nyaung Shwe

As true Dutchies the Brangelina’s went on some bikes to explore the area and finally see the Inle Lake. After exploring the centre with shops, restaurants, travel agents and other useful establishments for our visit we made our way to the water. We spoke to a lady who wanted to ‘sell’ us a boat ride for the next day. This is needed to explore the lake as you can’t travel around it as its quite big. I will update you about the boat trip at later stage. So we cycled along marches on a very dusty road full of stones but the views were stunning. We stopped a couple of times to park the bikes and walk around to explore the area and make some pictures. We passed a family who were taking their cows to another area in the marches which means the cows have to swim to the allocated area.

Mother and daughter arrived on a flat bottom boat with lots of weed from the lake and parked it in the water. They greet you with Hello or the Myanmar version; it was obvious they are already used to tourists who wander around in their backyard to shoot the perfect picture.

Then we stopped at a village called Wan Lha Nar and underneath it showed

620 people, 320 women and 300 men.

We were greeted by children and amazing views of the village, most of the houses are made from bamboo and raised above the water. A couple of them were from bricks and looked very much out of its place but still beautiful. People were very friendly and greeted us while getting on with their lives: repairing the bamboo stairs, fishing, cooking, gardening, taking a screaming pig to a far corner and then the noise stopped. The river ran through the village and is a main focus for most of them as it’s used for fishing, cleaning your cloths, yourself, transport you and your boat and sure has many other uses. Unfortunately, the river bed is polluted with empty plastic bottles called, Pearl, Shine, Win or Rose as these are the empty washing liquids used for washing the clothes.

Later on a lady walked with a dead duckling in her hand (using a tissue) and threw it into the same river, leaving the cat watching it traveling along the stream and not in its stomach. You can image that I’m still not eating any meat or local street food as even the rice is washed in this same river and I’m pretty sure my Western stomach can’t cope with this. A real shame but very sensible for the moment. On the way back we treated ourselves on some Western food at the luxury Amazing Nyaung Shwe Hotel in town to enjoy a Beef burger with chips and Wi-Fi. Hooray for civilization; as you can take the girl out of London but London not out of the girl!