As part of my 1 Month in Myanmar we spent 3 days in the Inle Lake area.
Day 1: Tour of the Lake + Boating Festival
Woke up early for our boat tour of the lake which included: NgaHpeChaung (Jumping Cat Monastery), floating farms and local artisans such as women who make cloth from Lotus flower fibers. (If you look closely at the picture there are fiber threads she is pulling out of the lotus stems. It takes 4-5,000 stems to make ~1m of string.)
Inle Lake in the early morning 
Weaving lotus fiber at Inle Lake, Myanmar 
Women pulling fibers from lotus flowers at Inle Lake, Myanmar 
Floating farms at Inle Lake, Myanmar 
Post Office at at Inle Lake, Myanmar 
Women selling lotus flowers at Inle Lake, Myanmar 
Burmese boys in boat at Inle Lake, Myanmar 
Nuns at at NgaHpeChaung at Inle Lake, Myanmar 
Colorful burmese tribe women at NgaHpeChaung at Inle Lake, Myanmar
And of course, the tour would not be complete without the obligatory photo op of the famous “leg rowing” fisherman. However, they now do this solely for the income of photo-op money and no longer actually fish. A sign that tourism has indeed started to affect Myanmar.
Then it was time to check out the big event – the boat racing festival! Here we got to see the leg rowing technique in full effect as teams of men raced their boats to victory.
Day 2: Rest / rain day
Today I attempted a run in the morning, but the heat was too much. After a very full day yesterday, we decided to rest in the morning so I used the time to do my patriotic duty and filled out my absentee ballot then went up the street to the post office to mail it where I also bought some postcards and stamps. Which I put to good use since our afternoon plans were cancelled due to rain.
Day 3: Nyaung Shwe Market, Temples & Vineyard
Woke up early and attempted another run. This one was much nicer than yesterday’s. I was immediately treated to the sight of monks collecting alms in the mist, puppies, and a bustling morning market.
Returned home and one of my travel buddies and I decided to go see Shwe Yaunghwe Kyaung, a unique monastery with unique oval windows. The map location we had was wrong so it wasn’t actually walking distance. After a while of walking, we finally figured it out and got a tuk-tuk out there. It meant that we missed the 11am chanting.
We were just about to leave when we spied another building which turned out to be really cool – filled with little buddha statues and the names of the people who had donated money. The decor was gorgous despite age and lack of maintenance.
After a bit of a rest and a snack back at our hotel, we rented some bikes and headed to the Vineyard to taste some extremely crappy wine served with stale bread and processed cheese (still in the wrapper). But the view was stunning and a few bottles in we had no cares.
We headed back to Chillax Bistro for their first pub quiz night – and we won!!
After a lovely stay in Inle Lake, it was time to move it along so we took the bus to Bagan.