Inle lake

From Kalaw we moved out of the hills back to the lowlands - another few changes of scenery! At one stage I could have sworn the countryside looked like England with patchwork fields and hedges - an illusion spoilt by some of the hedges being bamboo at closer sight, but you could see why the British Colonials felt at home!

There was also a lot of cabbage - it was harvest time so every pick up truck was filled to the gills of cabbage - it must be the entire countries supply grown here as there wasn't a huge cabbage theme in any restaurant we went to...

We managed to chase the 5 day market from Kalaw to Pindaya so I got to see a lot of the wares (surprisingly few cabbages!). Here we stopped for lunch as well as a visit to the Shwe Oo Min natural cave pagoda. 

At last count there were 1098 Buddhas (not including 'Buddha images') in the cave... This calls for another montage...

Meditation cave

The legend of Pindaya is that seven princesses were bathing in the lake and took shelter in the cave during a storm - only to be imprisoned by the evil spider. Luckily a passing prince managed to kill the spider and rescue the princesses.

View from the caves

Cutest little boy!

Barb relaxing by the fruit stall

Next up on arrival at Nyaungshwe (our base for Inle Lake) was wine tasting! This helps to continue my mission to wine taste around the world! We got tuk tuks up to Red Mountain Estate for a sunset wine tasting - and tasty it was too! Our favourite was the Cab Sav.

Alison and Barb getting into the spirit!

The view from the winery at sunset over Inle Lake

The next day we spent on the lake - almost literally when our boat broke down! We were in the long tail boats with the one size fits all motor (they use the same motors for tractors, water pumps and boats - you name it and they can use these motors for it!).

The girls boat

On our way across the lake we were lucky enough to see the fisherman doing the traditional leg rowing. Rowing with their leg wrapped around the oar allows their hands to be free to pay out the nets from the boat - the traditional way of catching fish was to snare them in the basket and then spear them, but now all the fisherman use nets and scare the fish into them using the flat of their oar smacked on the surface of the water.

On the other side of the lake we zoomed up the canals to Inthein - another truly spectacular site of hundreds of pagodas - the old and spooky and new and shiny (another montage....)

Old atmospheric pagodas - little bit tomb raider with trees & plants growing out of them

Shiny shiny - new pagodas

The markets nearby were also interesting - the local tribes wear very colourful longi which were on display for sale:

We visited the local silk & lotus weaving and cigar workshops in huts on stilts on the lake, where I had the opportunity to apply some of the local face paint, made from ground sandal wood. 

Not as good as the local women's make up!

Village houses on stilts.

We then returned back through the floating tomato gardens on the side of the lake - these apparently are made from piles of floating weeds and are anchored with bamboo stilts at either end.

After Inle we returned to Yangon for our final night as a group - another great G Adventure - thanks all!