I can't describe to you how much beauty this place has and Yuanyun and I totally basked ourselves in its tranquility and peacefulness~ My mind and soul was free. With nothing to care about. I also can't tell you how grateful I am to have my first Singaporean friend to visit me in Myanmar : )

Since Yuanyun was here for both Yangon and Inle Lake, lemme start off the post with my trip to Inle Lake first! Yangon post will come later~

For our trip to Inle Lake, I booked a two-way bus ride from Yangon to Nyaung Shwe, which is the town where Inle Lake is. Initially, I thought our trip was gonna be disastrous coz guess what? WE MISSED OUR BUS TO NYAUNG SHWE. Because of??? The bloody Yangon traffic. Na-beh leh. Seriously. Yangon is known for its preposterous traffic, but this was the WORST I've ever experienced. The worst. I would always set off for the airport one hour earlier and I thought going to the bus terminal, which was near the airport, would also take the same amount of time. But wow, we were stuck from 4:40 - 7pm. That's like 2+hours. I called the bus company to get them to wait for us but it was a 6pm bus so waiting for an hour was of course, not an option.

But having Yuanyun by my side, made things less scary. Imagine if I were alone, there wouldn't be someone to think together about Plan B and C. Or rant to. Or bitch to (about the taxi driver - I swear he went by a different route that he prolly thought was faster but whatta fail it was).

When we reached the terminal eventually, we quickly (and desperately) got ourselves another ticket from another bus company - Lumbini Express. No regrets whatsoever coz it's actually better than JJ Express?? (which we took on the way back). But after that incident, I opened my heart to Yuanyun about a lot of things while we were on the bus towards Nyaung Shwe.

So if we look at it, it was a serendipitous incident. What was meant to be disastrous helped kickstart our trip on a deep and soul-searching journey : )

Before I rant any longer, let's start my post!

It was an overnight 11 hour long ride to Nyaung Shwe and when we finally reached Nyaung Shwe, we checked into our hotel and went off on a bike ride around the lake.


Day 1: Bike Ride around town









While waiting, we had a mini (retarded) photoshoot at the stairway HAHAHA





OMG. Why do I feel like I'm back in Coral Secondary school ah?? Omylord, just looking at these pictures, and talking about our stupid poses, I'm transported back to 2007 when we were young and stupid. But I guess... we are... STILL YOUNG AND STUPID BAAHAHHAAH.


Eventually Yuanyun decided to go up to the view point. I sure as hell wouldn't wanna go up alone.

Check out the view~~




We sat there for a good.. I dunno? It could be anywhere between 30mins to an hour. Because we stoned there with no thoughts going through our minds at all. It was beautiful.

After that, we cycled to check out a local hot spring before cycling all the way back to our hotel.

On the way, we saw....



You can't see the second arch coz it was less conspicuous. But wow... what a moment hahaha.

After cycling back to our hotel, we rested for a bit before heading to a winery. I heard it had great sunset views. We thought we could take an FOC tuktuk there but it costed about $17 to and fro so like what the heck, we stuck to our bicycles, which was $5 for the whole day for two.

Luckily, it was only 3km long to get there, so it wasn't too tiring for Yuanyun.

We finally reached the top of the mountain (the place was called Red Mountain Winery haha how apt), climbed a few steps more...




And lo & behold...


Can't see from the pics, but we're on quite an ascent, so it was nice to see so far and wideeee.

This place was infested with angmohs hahahaha. Like, I think we were the only two East Asian girls? Saw some Myanmar ladies and Filippinos I'm guessing. The rest were all Caucasians.



What was hilarious for us was the fact that some dude came to sit with us, but we were really not interested to talk to him. I tried to make him feel at ease by engaging in friendly conversation with him but eventually I had to give Yuanyun a cue, "Eh, drink it up". She took it. And after that, she said, "Ok, let's go!" We were such a team. It ain't a bar man, if you were in the same situation as us, you'd totally understand.

The sun was setting over the hills real fast, so we had to whiz back to our hotel in quick time otherwise it'd be too dark (no lights since it was in the middle of a village).

Dinner was awesome at a restaurant opposite our hotel. Then, I wanted to go up to the roof of our hotel to explore and it was amazingggg coz we managed to catch a night sky blanketed with stars!!!!!! Reminded me of my time in Laos.... so fantastic... And while we were mesmerised, we suddenly heard loud booms and realised they were...

FIREWORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Womg, so amazing!!! We were so luckyyyy can't believe it. We told each other that it'd be super romantic if the other was our romantic partner lor.... but then reaffirmed that friends sharing a beautiful moment was just as awesome! (so insecure these two...)


Day 2: Boat Trippinnn'

Nice sunrise at the balcony of our hotel.



Anyway, soon we were on our BOAT TRIPPPP. The main thing that everyone goes for when they're at Inle Lake.

Now, prepare for, GORGEOUS PHOTOSSSS







The boat trip consisted of visits to places such as Silver-making, silk making, umbella making shophouses. It was interesting to see how they made their things. and then entice you to buy them hahaha. They'd always say, "No problem! Just looking!"

One of em is the lotus thread making.




I didn't want to take a photo with them, coz I felt like I was... objectifying them.
Treating them like freakshows. So it was a nono for me.
But they are of course, interesting nonetheless. Having heard so much about them, and finally getting to see them.

Still, I can't help but feel sad that they're placed here as a tourist spot. They're not originally from Inle Lake...




One last shot of our hotel~

Oooof, that last overnight bus ride was really tiring. Couldn't get proper sleep at all and I still have a little bit of a headache even after 10 hours of sleep goodnessssss.

BUT IT WAS ALL WORTH IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can come back here again lor. The place and the feeling I got from this trip was argh, wonderful. Go there if you ever have the chance to head to Myanmar! It's truly a beautiful, magical place...

I can't wait to embark on more trips around Myanmar : )

Alrightey, wait for my next post with Yuanyun around Yangon. Just a short one!