Wrapped up our final day and night at Bagan before 22 of us split and continued on to Inle Lake for four days....

The last day in Bagan was a free day and everybody kind of split up and did their own thing. Devin and Alida rented small motorcycles, Jon did a balloon ride and I just lounged around the pool area before joining a tour to one of the local villages.

The tour was kind of interesting but there was a “staged” aspect to it.  In many ways I found it almost identical to rural villages I’ve seen in Peru—electricity has only been installed recently so you have these crudely built huts some of which have TV antennas.

I always find the craft aspect of the villages interesting and this one had a community wood shop, community kitchen, a weaving area and a blacksmith shop.  They still use the old blacksmithing ways but in the back were a couple of small welding machines for when the electricity is on.

And yes, that’s an Internet router sitting on one of the welding machines.  It is, in fact a small world.

The company that sponsored the trip also put on the race.  It’s a new thing here and we found out it was limited to only 220 runners this year and that included several Myanmar runners who did the 10K race.

Our last evening, they took us out on a river cruise to a large sand island where they had set up generators and created an outdoor dining area illuminated by tiki torches and candles.  While a local Myanmar band performed, we watched slide shows and videos of the race which was really nice.  Supper was buffet style and it was a really nice way to wrap up the experience here.


















Next morning, we all said goodbye and headed home.  Twenty-two of us flew to Heho for the Inle Lake three-day extension.

Inle Lake is interesting in that the people here are not ethnic Burmese.  It’s the second largest lake in Myanmar and is located up in the mountainous area.   The fishermen here are known for the unique way they stand and wrap one leg around an oar and row their boat with both hands free to throw cast nets in the water.

The flight was only thirty minutes and then we took a slow, leisurely bus ride to the lake before a one-hour boat trip in the typical long dugout boats they use here.  Our boats weren’t actually dugouts but designed similarly---long and narrow.  The boat trip was fun but the sun was brutal while we were on the water. 

Just before arriving at the hotel, we stopped at a restaurant on stilts and had a pretty good fish dinner.

The hotel is approached via a long water route and dock.

The hotel is really nice but somewhat limited for activities due to the remote location.  On the second day, we did a tour of the lake.  The many villages here built over the water each have a specialized craft.  The families in these areas train their children in that particular craft and then the villages support each other.  My favorite today was the woodworking and boat building village.

They were building these with no electrical woodworking equipment—hand saws, brace and bit drills and the old wooden block planes.

We also visited another weaving shop, a place that makes the cheroot cigars which are really popular over here, and a floating garden as well as an island on their market day.

Returning to the hotel, I got a one-hour massage and we just relaxed the rest of the evening.  We have more island hopping tomorrow.

These marathon groups tend to be pretty straight-laced up to the race then really let loose afterwards.