Day 5-6
- Took the day bus from Bagan to Nyaungshwe. Bus 11000kyats each, AC, 8hrs including 30 min meal break. Included pick up from guesthouse in Bagan and drop off to guess house in Nyaungshwe. The bus stopped EVERYWHERE to pick up locals. At one point, the entire aisle was full of locals sitting on little plastic chairs. At the rest stop had lunch of fried noodles and fried vegetables, which cost 3800 kyats.
- Stayed at May Guesthouse in Nyaungshwe. $30 USD/30000 kyats per night, private bathroom, no AC (not needed), free breakfast. Place is very organized with photocopies of maps and preprinted biking itineraries. The manager Min speaks good English and is very knowledgeable. If he doesn’t have the answer for you, he’ll go and find it. The Lonely Planet review is mostly accurate. The place has thin walls and small towels. BUT they replace your towels daily; the only place that we encountered in Myanmar that did. No water pressure issues. Biggest issue was with cigarette smoke. One night we had a chainsmoking neighbour, who’s cigarette smoke would blow right into our room. We tried to seal the windows, but it was no use. Being non-smokers, this was incredibly annoying and I actually woke up with a case of sinusitis after that.
- Pedal bike rental 1500 kyats/day. No ebikes. Biked the loop. It was hot, but I think it was worthwhile. Boat ride 7000 kyats across the lake. One of my favourite Myanmar moments was seeing Inle Lake for the first time. After cruising through the villages and gardens, hitting the open water was quite spectacular. It really helped that it was a sunny blue skied day.
- Ate at Linh Htat (near the market) alot! We actually tried out the neighbouring restaurants, but decided we liked Lin Tat the best. It’s a family run place, that also seems to double as their living room. It was fun watching the babies and kids play around. Curry set menus = 2500 kyats. They are used to tourists here and are willing to do things like dip your raw veggies in boiling water for you.
- Other: got a haircut at a beauty ‘saloon’. (Rarely saw signs for a beauty ‘salon’, only ‘saloon’!) Girl didn’t speak any English, so I pointed at a picture and she cut away! 2000 kyats, slightly uneven, but well worth it as my hair was getting to be too hot.
Day 7: Boat tour on Inle Lake
- Despite being a super ‘touristy’ thing to do, I highly recommend the boat tour. Maybe it was the time of year, but there were barely any other boats at any of the stops. We paid the extra 2000kyats to go to Indein. So a full day 0730-1730 tour was 20000kyats for the boat, 5 person max, arranged through the guesthouse. The guesthouse had a preprinted itinerary that we just followed. I had no problems with the stops at the shops, as I found them mildly interesting. That and it was really hot out in the sun, so the stops provided some shade breaks :p The rotating market was at Than Taung that day, which is a 20min walk inland. The market was really neat – completely for locals. We were actually the only foreigners there. Bought some tasty deep fried ‘perogies’ for 500kyats.
- My favourite part of the boat tour was going to Indein. Definitely worth the extra 2000kyats to visit and the 500kyat camera fee. There are many ruined stupas at the bottom of the hills, with trees/bushes growing out of them. Very Indiana Jones-like. We visited at the end of the day, so most of the sellers had already packed up and left.
- Lunch was at a restaurant that the boat driver brought us to. Was overlooking the Phaung Daw Oo paya. Shan noodle soup = 1500 kyats, fish curry 2500 kyats, rice 500 kyats, bottle of pop 500 kyats
- Dinner at Linh Tat again, set menu curry 2500 kyats, shan noodle soup 1000 kyats
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