A Weekend at the Lakes...

Within two minutes of stepping off the bus from Yangon, I'd hopped in a tuk tuk driven by a young teenager who looked like he'd stepped straight out of Quadrophenia. White jeans (with a generous splattering of mud), leather jacket, subtly styled hair. A very cool customer indeed. The tuk-tuk was jam packed with fruit, veg and even one woman's baby, perched atop the produce!
 

I was last to be dropped off but found my chosen guest house pretty quickly and had a serious nap before going out to explore the town. Like Yangon it was almost devoid of travelers and seemed very ghost town-esque. I wandered around the markets and the outskirts of town and started the very serious task of figuring out Myanmar food. Here was my first encounter with the set meal. 3 dollars down and with roughly 10 plates on the table I was feeling overwhelmed. With 3 of them figured out to be dried fish I put them to one side and started on the others - soy bean, veggies, chilli, curry, fried peanuts, rice and soup! All followed by my favourite - a dessert of pure sugar all ground up in a little sweet, which they claim is actually good for you!! The day ended pretty uneventfully, I fell in to a deep sleep before 10 knowing I had an early start

 

The next morning, before I'd even had chance to wipe the sleep from my eyes, I was asked to join a couple of French ladies on a boat trip. We set off with a lovely Italian bloke and headed out for Inle Lake. Although it was a day peppered with glorified tourist shops, the boat trip on the lake was more than enough to keep me smiling. We saw Myanmar's Venice, complete with leg paddling fishermen, people brushing their teeth in the river and a monastery with cats which (apparently) jump through hoops. Although they were all sleeping when we got there...
 

We got back fairly early, and unsure what else to do I fell back on the British staple - beer. Thankfully, Italy was a pretty perfect drinking partner. We got a table and a huge jug of beer in a local restaurant. After another jug the next stop, naturally, was a haircut for Italy. He bargained and haggled his heart away whilst I made friends with the hairdresser's son - through the universal language of games on my phone. We finally made it back to the guest house and was treated to a night cap of tea and nibbles with the owners and what I'm absolutely sure was a rendition of a You Me At Six song from a group of street roaming teens before another much needed rest. More earling mornings were to follow...




Delicious Indian food - no dried fish! : )