The trip to Lake Inle was going to be very long train journey. We'd been told it would take 28 hours. In reality, we thought it would take even longer than that. Loaded with supplies, we headed to Yangon train station, and asked which platform to go to. We were told number four. We headed there, and we set our stuff down, ready to hop on the train when it arrived. On advice, we’d arrived at the station early. This gave us time to wander up and down the station platform, and clamber around on an empty train which we thought might be ours. It wasn’t. We asked several people who looked vaguely official for confirmation that we were on the correct platform. They all told us we were. Eventually, as time passed, we found a train manager, who told us we needed platform three instead. Back over the bridge we went, and presently our train did arrive. It’s a good job we seek reassurance constantly.

On the train, we discovered our comfortable and reclining seats, and tried to fit our possessions around the space available . The train was, as expected, in no rush, and we headed off in a leisurely pace out of the city. We passed city life along the way, and stopped at a couple of stations were we were able to top up on additional supplies of boiled eggs. Out in the countryside, Jack and El were bird spotting (a passion of Jack’s) and we were dozing, listening to music, and generally being a bit insular for a while. It was a long journey ahead and we were keen to break it up into manageable chunks.  

The views were exceedingly pretty from the train. We stopped plenty of times at stations, sometimes for an excessively lengthy time. It gave us an opportunity to witness the lives of people who base their living around train stations, where plenty of trade happens. There was a very pretty sunset and plenty of beer was bought and drunk. Eventually, we attempted to settle in for a bumpy night’s sleep. Unfortunately, we couldn’t close all of the windows in the train carriage, meaning that a cold wind blew through . Nor could we turn off the lights, which were stark, despite the train manager’s attempt to help.

The strangest part of the journey was at about 5am on Monday 11th, when Ken was woken by one of the fellow passengers. They motioned to him to get off the train. Ken roused the rest of us, and we found that our carriage was now entirely abandoned on a siding. The lights were still blazing away, but there were no passengers, no engine, no doors, and no other carriages. And no explanation. It was entirely bizarre. We gathered that we probably had to change trains (when booking this journey, El had been categorically assured that we would not have to change trains at all, let alone in the middle of the night), but didn’t know where to go. There was no one to speak to. There was no information. The train manager who had been looking after us was nowhere to be found.

We packed up our scattered belongings, and huddled in the freezing cold . We found passengers who had been on our carriage in a different train on the next siding, and gathered from gestures that we should be on that train instead. We climbed on. El persuaded a different train man to open up the first class carriage, and he told us to sit in a set of seats which were not ours according to our tickets. By this time, Jack and Jayna had gone to sleep in the next carriage, where the benches allowed us to lie flat. We were woken by people playing very loud music unnecessarily at about 6.30am. Transferring into the next carriage to join Ken and El, Jack went on an adventure for coffee. Eventually, the train set off, and we were still without Jack. El did the only thing she could do, which was to go and find him, whilst Ken and Jayna panicked about what to do. For whatever reason, the train reversed back the way it came, and Jack and El found the train and climbed back on board. Eggs were purchased, coffee was drunk from a tin previously used for condensed milk… it was all thoroughly strange. And we’d had very little sleep.

The next few hours were spent with the train travelling extremely slowly up through the mountains. This involved a number of manoeuvres to manage the climb in altitude, such as the train driving into a siding and changing direction to get onto the next section of track. At one point, we did a loop the loop to lose some of the altitude we’d spent hours climbing up . We gained and lost various passengers and by the time we reached our destination, we were nearly the only people on the train. We passed through the train station for Kalaw, a place we would later visit, and were very pleased to finally arrive at Shwenyaung as it was getting dark. The journey had taken 31 hours, and it had been exhausting. Pretty and exhausting.

On jumping off the train at Shwenyaung, we negotiated for a minibus style taxi to take us to Nyaungshwe (yes, the names are confusing), our ultimate destination, by Lake Inle. We were staying on the outskirts of the town and were dropped off directly outside the motel, Motel Album. This was after we had purchased our tickets to enter the protected Lake Inle area. The owners of the motel were the most friendly and happy people, ever, and gave us a welcome drink and upgraded us to 'luxury’ bungalows. We had a self-contained unit for each couple, with hot shower and comfortable beds with fantastic warm white cotton bedsheets (which we later spilt red wine over… whoops…) . We were very hungry after our epic train journey with very little food, and headed to the nearest restaurant for comfort food. We slept greedily.

Lake Inle is a large lake, with villages skirting the edges. Locals make a living from the water, or by the numerous arts and crafts around the area. Nyaungshwe, the main tourist town, appeared to be quite far away from the water’s edge. This was misleading, as we discovered that the lake extended out from it’s apparent borders, with waterways everywhere, and villages built on top of the water. We were excited to see life on the lake, and see the intricate crafts of the area.

Breakfast on the morning of Tuesday 12th was banana pancakes, plus fruit and coffee. It was awesome. We set out for the day by hiring push bikes from our motel, and got organised with our next major activity when leaving Lake Inle, which was to trek to Kalaw. El had previously organised this, so we went and finalised the details with our tour operator, Sunny Day Tours . Next, we headed west and then south on the bikes, around the edge of the lake, to a set of hot springs. Here, we enjoyed a good long soak in small pools of varying temperatures. We enjoyed the facilities of available drinks and food, before moving on to our next destination, a place colloquially known as Tofu Village. Here, the locals make a different kind of tofu, using split beans. We left Jack and El as they ventured into someone’s house for some of the tofu in a village which was not Tofu Village, and ventured on to see what we could see. We stopped in Tofu Village for some fried tofu, which came with two different kinds of giant rice crackers, pickles and dips, a tofu salad, and sticky caramelised rice for dessert. All for the princely sum of 4000 kyat (about £2). Whilst finding the bathroom, Ken saw the making of the sticky caramelised rice in some sheds behind our eatery. We went for an explore of the village and found many stupas looking very pretty near the water’s edge.

Next, we took a water taxi eastwards, with our bikes, across the lake to another village. This was absolutely idyllic. Our boatman circled some fishermen for us, who were using their feet to paddle and seemed to us to be remarkably unsuccessful at catching any fish, or anything else for that matter. We traversed the very long pier on the other side of the lake, and avoiding knocking the school children into the lake as they walked/ ran/ skipped in the opposite direction (not that easy when you have a bike on a narrow pier), we cycled north to a vineyard, called Red Mountain . Here, we found Jack and El again, and met a very nice Aussie couple called Adam and Jen. We tried the wine sample menu of five different kinds of wine. Then we had a couple of glasses of our favourite, and a cheese board where the blue cheese was heavenly. The place was rammed with tourists. We watched sunset from our outside vantage point. We were still 5km away from Nyaungshwe and it was getting dark, so we hightailed it down the hill to our bikes, and peddled quickly to our motel.

Later, we headed out for dinner to an eatery nearby, and spent some more time getting to know Adam and Jen. Unfortunately for us, the eatery was incapable of understanding vegetarian food despite our very clear requests, and served us meaty dishes. Disappointed, we left and went to find some wine to drown our sorrows. The nearby shop didn’t sell wine, but just outside by the side of the road was a small gathering of locals, with a small fire, and a guitar. Ken went and said hello and before we knew it, we were furnished with plastic chairs, the fire was built up, we had whisky and coke to drink from cute glasses, fire wood was stacked nearby, and the locals were playing us Burmese songs whilst singing in harmonies . They offered Ken the guitar, and Ken played a couple of times. The first time, he played a couple of his own tunes. The next time, he played a couple of Levellers songs (Men-An-Tol and Maid of the River), and we sang, badly. The locals took pictures of us and we did likewise. The fire was gloriously warm for the cold evening. When we ran out of whisky, we gave our remaining coke to the children, and some wine appeared from nowhere for us. We didn’t speak each other’s languages, but as laughter is a common language, we had a great time with the locals. Drunk, we took ourselves back to the motel, where the owners had been worried about us as we’d been out so late. We think they were relieved to finally close the gate and go to bed!

On Wednesday 13th, we took a boat tour around Lake Inle to see some of the local villages and sights. We hired a boat chap who luckily for us had thick blankets on his boat. It was very cold in the morning, and zipping along at high speed on the lake was also cold inducing . We saw the balancing unsuccessful fishermen again, as we zipped off to our first stop, Ywama. Here, we saw silver making. We were shown a lump of silver ore, and a machine used to press silver into strips (but not the process in between those two things). Then we saw the intricate work of the jewellers, making the silver into extremely pretty objects, followed by a sales room full of very expensive silver. We didn’t buy anything, and headed off to see a woman with a long neck. A curious tourist attraction, she and her daughters (we assume) used metal coils to stretch their necks. We politely poked around in her shop before heading off to the next stop.

We zipped off to a market, being held at Phaung Daw Oo Paya. The market rotated where it was held, in a seemingly very democratic fashion. This location was by a temple, so it was shoes off. Ken and Jayna got distracted by the trinket sellers outside of the actual market and so barely saw the market itself. By all accounts, it was full of stuff, and not just tourist orientated things . Our next stop was in In Phaw Khone, where we witnessed the traditional weaving process for lotus, silk and cotton products. The lotus was, in particular, extraordinarily time consuming to weave. We were surprised that they bothered. Especially as a scarf would end up costing $200 to $400 US dollars. The process was interesting, and we saw looms, threading, dying, and a comprehensive shop full of wares which none of us could afford.

The next stop was lunch in Nampan, which was on a house on stilts in the water. That was the best thing about it, and it made us feel slightly sea sick as it rocked in the slight wake from the passing boats. The food was not great. After forcing some food down, we went next door to see cigarettes and cigars being hand crafted. We were offered a cigarette to try, so we did. It was slightly flavoured with something, like it had a faint hint of aniseed. The making process was swift and deftly done.

Next was a trip to In Thein, a place full of stupas, both modern and crumblingly old . To get there, it was another razz around in the boat, and this time we would go up weirs. In other words, up small inclines of water, through narrow channels, approached at speed. That was pretty cool. In Thein was great. Once we found the stupas and got out of the tourist alleyway, we wandered around hundreds of old decrepit ruins of stupas, complete with crumbling Buddha statues. It was very eerie and yet serene, with a gentle tinkling noise from the decorations on the stupas. We climbed up to the top of the hill to see the new stupas and found some puppies, always exciting.

We went down the weirs on the way back out to our final stop, Nga Hpe Kyaung, a monastery with cats which perform. Apparently perform as we did not see this. Instead we saw lots of cats, people drinking tea on mats with lot of cats, and a monk. It was a beautiful setting nonetheless, with the old teak monastery being full of dark charm in itself. From there, we could also see what is known as the floating gardens; garden on floating mats, tended to by gardeners on boats.

We were pretty done in by this point, and headed back to Nyaungshwe. We headed out to a Nepalese place for some decent vegetarian food, and got chatting to an American couple about a trek they had just completed. We were due to start the trek the following day, except in the other direction. It sounded great and we went to bed stoked for a good few days of walking ahead.

Next stop – three day, two night trek to Kalaw!