January 21 - Bagan to Inle Lake

A light and pleasant day.  Up at 4:30 to finish packing, have breakfast and be ready to board the bus at 6:30.  Breakfast was a bust as the soup I wanted was still cold so I fed it to a dog and decided to wait until lunch.  Amazing, the trip to Mandalay that took us eleven hours by boat took twenty minutes by plane and then it was another twenty-five minutes to Heho.  As I approached the bus in the parking lot an older man took my hand.  I had no idea whatsoever what he was doing or might do but I just stood there.  He proceeded to give me a pressure point massage and was soon joined by a younger one who took over on the other side.  When a third went for my leg the other two chased him off.  They did my hands. arms, neck, head, back and a little bit on my legs. It felt great!  I've done a lot of things standing up in parking lots but never before had a massage....  Once I had my back pack on the bus I went outside for a smoke and they went at me again for a few minutes.  I wish they were here tonight to give me a full and much longer treatment.

As we approached Inle Lake the hills became higher and there was a noticeable change in the vegetation.  The trees are much larger and there are different varieties.    This is a fertile area that produces much of the produce in Myanmar.  It is also home to a number of ethnic tribes some of which we may see tomorrow.

The Hu Pin Hotel is pretty spectacular.  All of the rooms are cottages on stilts on the water.  Each ahs its own veranda and steps down to the the water.  The rooms have windows looking out across the lake and are nicely furnished.  Beds are covered in mosquito netting and coils are also provided.  That reminds me that I haven't yet located my bug dope....  My one complaint about the hotel is that the rooms are so far (several hundred meters) from the main building and the restaurant.   On top of that the trek to the restaurant is largely uphill.   Thankfully Bill (from Perth) went for a walk and returned carrying some beer for me to put in the fridge.  He found a store where it is less than half the price, maybe $1.15 a liter, while in the hotel it is almost $3.00.  Still very cheap of course but may as well save where you can.

Ko Sai (tour guide) got some kids to put together a bamboo fishing pole for me and they delivered it and some worms to my cottage.   I tried for a while and got some tiny nibbles but didn't catch anything.  Even that is more luck than I had in Botswana.

I had lunch in the hotel restaurant.  Chicken ball soup, rice and sweet and sour chicken.  The soup was a little weak but tasty none the less.  The chicken was very good and the sauce was much more subtle than that in Chinese restaurants in Canada.  I was surprised to be charged for the rice as i thought it came free with all meals here.  That was only a surprise, not a problem as the whole meal only cost about $6.00.  No supper again tonight.

I'm not quite clear what is on tap for tomorrow.  All that I know for sure is that we start at 8:30.