TREKKING TRAILS AND TRIBULATIONS... KALAW TO INLE LAKE

The buses in Myanmar leave at really odd times. Having left Yangon at 8pm we were turfed out on the dark and empty streets of Kalaw at 2 in the morning. A nice young lady who also happened to be a tour guide came to our rescue and showed us to a nice hotel. The nice lady also managed to convince us to sign up for her trek from Kalaw to Inle Lake, assuring us that the trails would be bone dry in spite of all the rain.

After a good night´s sleep we took our first day in Kalaw at our leisure and just sat in various little tea houses, sitting on tiny stools at tiny tables, drinking tiny cups of tea. As the rains came down hard hard hard we wondered about the validity of the dry-trekking-trail assurance. Too late to back out now...



We awoke early the next morning to a reasonably dryish morning, no downpours like the day before, which was nice. We then sat ourselves down for an exceedingly great big breakfast courtesy of our hotel where we met fellow trekkie(not the star trek kind) Nils, a young and very well travelled Canadian guy with whom we hung out for a few days after and downed more than a few Myanmar Beers. We payed a quick visit to the very colourful village market before boarding our transport to our starting point.



Well it was lashing out of the heavens as we set of on clearly quite a muddy trail. Thankfully we had splashed out on some frightfully fashionable raincoats the previous day so we didn´t mind so much.



As we approached the first village the rain had not let up at all and the mud was getting just a tad muddier. We were invited in for some tea and fried nuts by a nice lady and we gladly accepted. We were shown to a floor mat where we sat, ate, and drank as two families(many of the huts here house two families) sat and stared at us from across the room. The hut itself was quite spàcious and had a separate ´kitchen´ comprising of a small fire in the middle of the floor, basic but humblingly adequate. While we sat the sun had broken through outside so we hastily said our thankyous and trekked on like something from a lucosade ad.



We got to our lunch point with no further rains and enjoyed some noodles and more tea in a small family home, they´re murder for the tea in Myanmar! Half way through our noodles didn´t the heavens open again, only this time it didn´t feel like it was gonna stop. We delayed as long as we could but eventually had to brave the elements and carry on.



Our nice young lady guide appeared to be having a great ol´time as she laughed aloud while slipping and sliding in the now beyond-a-bloody-joke-mud. The laughs were not so loud from behind however as we sunk deeper into it and our polite smiles started to turn slowly upside-down. The mud stuck in layers to the bottom of our shoes producing a kind of Spice Girl shoe effect which proved ever so difficile to walk in. By the time we arived at a once-little-trickle-of-a-stream-which-had-now-turned-into-a-small-river which we had to tramp through, the outlook was not good but we were past the point of return.





Mud to our knees(well almost) was not what we had envisioned and I won´t mention any names but by the time we reached the Buddhist Monastery which was to be our home for the night a certain Polish man was less than pleased, the Slavic curses were nobody´s business as he vowed to never trek again for the rest of his life and tried unsuccessfully to secure his escape for the following day. Spending the night at the monastery, however, proved to be a very cool and unique experience and brought a hint of a smile back to our faces by bed time as we listened to the chants of the young novice monks, who were also to become our alarm clock at five the following morning. Lots of rain again at night...




A blessing from the head monk saw us off the following morning. This and a hearty breakfast saw our spirits lift as we set off into the unknown once more. Well Buddha had mercy on us as the sun broke through and stayed with us til we reached the edge of Inle Lake. The fields were dotted with workers, both men and women, ploughing and digging and whatnot, all part of a colourful and old-fashioned picture. Watching these workers hard at it put our muddy trek saga into perspective.





Across the lake with us as the rain came down once more. This time it didn´t put such a dampener on things. Inle Lake is huge and beautiful and a step back in time. Floating gardens, floating villages, floating markets, one-legged oarsmen with some rather odd looking fishing equipment, long-necked ladies, jumping cats(some bored Buddhist monks taught them), hand-weavers, and hundreds of temples. This is a world apart from our dull existence in the west.

I don´t believe I´ve ever enjoyed a warm shower quite as much as on my arrival in Nuang Shwe, our destination town on the edge of Inle, I´ll spare you the pictures though!









Feeling quite tired and a bit proud of ourselves we hung out in Nuang shwe for a few days of utter relaxation and some enjoyable evenings out on the town with our brand new friends Nils, Shuyi, Rebecca and Nick. We also found the time to take another sunny trip out on the lake. All in all the memories from Inle are great ones that I think will stay with us for a while.