Bus journeys in Myanmar seem to be the opposite of most countries we have been to, in that they are typically quoted as taking a certain amount of hours but then actually take less time! So our proposed 10 hour bus from Bagan to Inle Lake got us there in 8 hours, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that. It's notable for anyone who is ever going to do this trip that this route involves a very slow and very windy trek through the mountains, and we were extremely grateful to be sitting at the front of the bus, with nice wide views to predict the twists and turns.

Inle Lake is supposedly the most touristy place in Myanmar, but off-season is off-season, so we continued our streak of blissfully uncrowded experiences. The lake is famous for being the second largest lake in Myanmar, a biosphere reserve, and a delightful scene of floating villages and markets. One our first day we lucked out by sharing the cost of a boat tour with another guy from our guest house, and at a fantastic price (about $6 CAD per person for a 9 hour day.) The Inle Lake area is known for the "5 Day Market" which rotates around to different towns and villages, and we were in luck to visit the open market at Nan Pan; a village sitting on stilts at the southern end of the lake. We cruised past the Floating Garden where the gardening was being tended to by people in their boats, and marvelled at how many tomatoes could be grown in one place (Dad, this is your heaven!) The highlight was zipping up a narrow canal through tiny locks to reach the village of Indein. It was an incredibly fun journey that elicited "woos!" and laughs from everyone as we reached over each little waterfall, and sped past the local children playing in the water who were as usual, incredibly excited and amused to see us. At Indein village we visited another temple site, but found that we could not properly explore it due to the ground being simply too hot for us to stand on for any length of time with our shoes removed. Instead we spent some time taking photos of the sweet, tuckered out cats sleeping inside the temple. In fact, there are a lot of cats at Inle Lake - we have not really seen them anywhere else in Myanmar!

The next 2 days we ambitiously rented bicycles (the real ones where you have to pedal and work) and slogged away at 2 recommended cycling routes that are probably far more enjoyable in cooler temperatures. It was difficult to stay properly hydrated, and this area in the hills has some more challenging terrain than Bagan, so these adventures were rather short lived. We also started to get a bit more rain in Inle Lake so kept trying to make sure we were never that far from a shelter! We decided to go out again on a boat ride for our last day, as we felt we wanted to see more of village life. Our sights were set on a trip to Samkar Lake, about 3 hours away on the water, but were told that the water level was too low to get there. (One of the downsides to off-season travel). Instead we were content to cruise around on Inle Lake again to see some new villages, and watch the local fishermen engaging in the local technique of using a leg to steer the paddle of the boat (indeed we saw so many photos of this iconic fisherman throughout Myanmar beforehand that we said we would consider it a giant failure if this image didn't come to fruition!) And perhaps the most dear memory of that day - just before returning back, a herd of water buffalo walked down to the shore and smartly immersed themselves in the cool of the lake before going on a little swim past our boat. Sweethearts! Thanks, buffs!