Inle Lake, a time to unwind on the serenity of the water

A peaceful day zipping along in a long tail boat, the calm only disturbed by the noisy engines of other long tail boats passing by. This is the area famous for the Leg Rowers (can't see the point of it but they've been doing it for centuries so it must suit them).

It's also an area for seaweed fishing, this is used for fertiliser I believe not cooking:

They have to keep bailing out or the boat would sink. The seaweed appeared to be incredibly heavy as it took a huge effort to haul in on board.

Not an occupation for the weak or faint hearted!

Needless to say there was a large temple/monastery to visit on the river bank but first we had to navigate our way through the entrance gate:

Inside it was the usual shoes off, Buddhas everywhere:

The boat parking area:

The definitely organic garden:

Acres of it:

With a form of greenhouse for growing gourds of some sort:

More riverside architecture including a bit of a traffic jam:

Note the bamboo poles used as scaffolding in the above photo.

All this fresh air makes you hungry so it was definitely time for lunch:

Great setting but getting the boat tied up might not be so easy:

Suitably watered and fed it was time to glide off to the local handicraft houses:

Weaving

And boat building

And cigar making

One more temple then time to head back to shore:

An overnight stop in Inle, not exactly the centre of the universe:

But it has the advantage of being one of the starting points of the lake so is an important stop for tourists:

Now back to Yangon from He Ho Airport (I wonder who came up with that name) and flew on my favourite little plane:

On the journey from the airport to the centre of town we made a detour so we could be nosey and see the front gate of Aung San Suu Kyi's house: how depressing to spend so many years of house arrest barricaded behind all that steel!

Final night in Burma and had dinner overlooking the lake in the park that I visited the afternoon before I set off on my trip round the country:

And the following morning gave me a couple of hours to stroll round town for the last time. Was surprised to see that the entrances to the town centre park were almost impossible to access due to the deep trenches that were being dug round the perimeter, maybe something to do with the drains or the water supply. I had posted a photo of this area before, showing a group of tourists being guided into the park, how different it looks now!

So time to leave, farewell to Burma and back to Bangkok. I do hope you'll join me there.