A Day Spent on Inle Lake

Inle Lake, one of Myanmar’s most popular tourist destinations, is beautiful, beguiling and distinctly unique. Read on to see why this has to be on your list of ‘must see’s’ for Myanmar.

Visiting Myanmar? Read my guide on what to expect here.

Inle Lake

WHERE: Eastern Myanmar

WHY: Amazing photography, awesome experience

TIME: 1 day

The easiest way to visit Inle Lake is to go by organised tour. Whilst it would certainly be possible to take water taxis throughout the entire region of the lake, it’s simply so much easier to just hop on and hop off the same boat all day. You can organize a private tour from the town of Nyaungshwe, which is located on the banks of Inle Lake. We organised our tour by shopping around the tour operators in town, most of which are located in a small radius from the lake. After visiting a few offices we decided to book with Excellent Inlay Travel & Tours (26 Phaund Daw Pyan Road Nyaung Shwe, 06081, Myanmar). Whilst booking, we mapped out a personalised itinerary. At this stage in our trip, we’d seen our fair share of stupas, so decided to opt out of visiting yet another stupa, and spend more time in a local market at dawn, and to visit a rice-wine producing distillery later in the day.

We arrived at the office at 5 am the next morning, mercifully rugged up against the cold. Once we had met our driver, a silent 16 year old whom chain smoked for much of the trip, we were away. We set off from the jetty of Nyuangshwe just as the sun began to rise. The water was very still at that time in the morning, and there were several fisherman hauling in their catches. It was cold. The air was like ice as we skated across the lake to our first destination - to make matters worse, Carlie hadn’t worn socks, leaving her ‘freezing to death’ at the prow of our boat for the first hour of the journey.

When we arrived at our first destination, the small, but thriving market at Sao Hing, the first order of business was to find Carlie some socks. Her now frozen toes needed shelter, so she sidled up to the nearest stall selling clothing and managed to haggle with the owner over a pair of yellow children’s socks. The owner strangely reluctant to part with the socks, continued to dissuade her, pointing at some rather ugly adult basketball socks. Carlie maintained her stance, and came away with a pair of violent yellow socks - fashion crimes notwithstanding, her feet were now warm.

As the day began to break, the market came into full swing, and we were left to wander around, eating delicious little doughy pastries, fish cakes and scalding hot coffee. There were very few tourists at the market at this time in the morning, and the local women were jockeying for the best positions by the foreshore. However, after sneaking in a further pastry, we headed back to the boat, our adolescent captain awaiting us, now clad in a Nike beanie; from where it was procured, I know not.

We then heading south on the lake, now passing by the ‘fake’ fisherman, whom seemed to float on the lake largely for staged photographs. They sidled close to us, but gained little custom from our boat. I do wonder how they make a living from this - I don’t think they actually catch fish do they? Regardless, we moved on by, and continued down the lake. Now, the air was starting to grow warm, and the sunlight danced across the water. It was easy-living, being driven down the lake, and I sat there content, mesmerised by all that I saw, and possibly by the diesel fumes emanating from our motor, located close-by to my right ear. By midmorning, we had reached a large village in the middle of the lake, built entirely on stilts. Camera out, the ever ready tourist, I snapped photo after photo of this beautiful place, al the while trying to avoid actually including any other tourists in the shot. It seems such a farce doesn’t it? That we all try to capture these places without tourists in them, yet the places themselves largely survive on tourism. Thus, by photographing them without tourists, are we enacting some sort of facade? Pseudo-intellectual thoughts aside, this place was beautiful, and we floating through the stilt-village for about half-an-hour before being whisked away for lunch.

We ate at a small restaurant on the banks of the village Thar Lay. Here, we feasted on the omnipresent tea-leaf salad, but also ate an excellent vegetable curry, and fish-head soup. I distinctly remember drinking a room temperature beer at this point and looking across at Carlie - she nodded, knowing the pain all too well. Yet, the food was good, and sitting in the shade was a true blessing.

After eating, we jumped back into the boat, to continue down through the thin, heavily vegetated stream that connects the northern half of the lake to the southern. Our boatman punted us through the reeds and further south through the channel. At several stages we were stuck against the reeds, the brown water swirling perilously about our craft until he could get us unstuck with a curious mixture of revving the engine and beating at the reeds as though they had done him personal insult. I wondered if he would respond to any jokes about us being on the River Styx and him being the boatman, Charon. However, I decided not to bring it up and we continued on down through the river.

In the early afternoon we reached the southern half of the lake. As we had opted to sip the horrifically touristy ‘floating market,’ we had time to kill, and our boatman took us to a local rice-wine distillery. We opted for the local version of a ‘tasting-flight,’ which amounted to us consuming a prodigious amount of rice wine of varying quality with the owner of the distillery, a leathery old man whom certainly knew his way around a still. However, the process by which the wine was produced - using a complex series of clay pipes to distill, was genuinely interesting. Carlie, being considerably cleverer than I, was able to understand and then explain to me how the wine was made. Thus elucidated, we purchased a few unmarked bottles of rice wine and returned to the vessel - somewhat languorous under the influence of the spirits.

After cruising south along the lake for another half an hour we were then dropped at the small village of Tharkong to visit the pagoda. Despite our reservations at visiting YET ANOTHER PAGODA, the Tharkong Pagoda was certainly worth our time, the complex of twisting spires, brick temples and gorgeous religious frescoes were certainly interesting. However, in the afternoon heat, it was difficult to appreciate the subtleties of the Buddhist faith, so we promptly said goodbye to Tharkong and once again joined our child-mariner for a final punt up the lake.

He dropped us at a small village known as Long Kan. He explained to us that the village was known for its ceramics, and bid us to visit the local potter, who was expecting us. After wandering through the gorgeously authentic village (seriously), we were led by our driver to a small bamboo hut - underneath which, an old woman was cranking out pottery. After watching her create several bowls with all the effort of breathing, she gave us a turn. Watching Carlie try to wrangle the clay into the correct shape is still one of the purest memories from that day. With each attempt, the clay gave way, folding in upon itself like an wilting flower. However, after several attempts, she succeeded, creating a fairly excellent clay bowl in the process. After purchasing several of her already fired pots, we then jumped back into the boat to make our way back to Nyaungshwe. The route back to town was simply stunning - the sun was now setting, casting the water in shades of gold and russet. The temperature was perfect, and I felt an odd sense of kinship with the still posing stilt fisherman, continuing to dangle over the boats for gawping tourists.

We arrived back on dry land just as darkness fell. After shaking the hand of the pre-pubescent sailor, we made the slow journey back to our hotel. Memories like these aren’t formed any ordinary day.

If you wanna visit Inle Lake, I’d strongly encourage you to book a private boat trip. Not only will you be away from other tourists, but you’ll also get to design your own itinerary, visit places off the beaten track, and will spend comparably not that much more money. In terms of value-for-money, going with Excellent Inlay Travel & Tours was a choice I’ve not regretted, and I’d advise you to book with them too.

Any questions, comments or thoughts? Ask away in the comments below!