Day 223 - Nyaung Shwe at Inle Lake

After a freezing cold night in the bus, I arrived in Nyaung Shwe just after 4:15 in the morning and found a hotel who let me check in right away without charging extra.

After breakfast, I set out to explore the town and see how far it was from Inle Lake, unfortunately it turned out to be around 10 km away from the lake. This meant I decided to just walk around and explore the area without going on the lake on my first day.

Walking around the town was quite nice and it looked like a quiet and laid back town, I also happened to come about a very nice old lady offering me (and other tourists judging from her guestbook) free tea and a nice conversation.

I saw a small road leading outside of the town towards the lake and decided to follow it and see where it leads.

The road led out of town to some of the small villages around and provided some nice view of the landscape around and the houses right by the river leading to Inle Lake.

While it was nice to walk around the town and villages today, tomorrow I'll join some people on a boat trip on the lake, afterall the lake is the main attraction here.

Day 222 - A Day in Mandalay

Today kind of shows why it's good to be open and just change plans if the opportunity comes along. At first I wanted to take it easy, sleep in a bit, go for a walk and then get a coffee and work on my blog.

While I was walking around the bottom of Mandalay Hill and was trying to decide if I should or should not walk up, one of the motorbike drivers approached me and asked if I want to hire his services for the day.

At first I declined since I didn't want to spend much money and afterall I could just hire a bike and drive myself to places.
But since he insisted we ended up reaching an agreement and a good price, he would take me around to see all the main sights in Mandalay and bring me to the train station or bus station later to catch my train or bus to Inle lake.

This gave me the opportunity to go and visit all the main temples at the bottom of Mandalay Hill, get lunch in a locals only place, see some of the further away temples and go to the famous U Bein Bridge.

The temples were all quite nice, despite me being a bit unsure about spending more time looking at temples after two days in Bagan.

The real highlight however was the U Bein Bridge as it's not only cool to see but there is a lot around it happening with people fishing, swimming and taking boats around the lake.

Since I quite enjoyed it at the bridge and it got late, I decided to just get the bus instead of the train. It also seemed not only to be the cheaper and faster option than the train, it also means not having to spend one night in the train and one in Thazi before getting to Inle Lake.
The bus makes this journey in just a few hours so I will arrive in Inle Lake at 4:00 in the morning.

Day 221 - The Train to Mandalay

Having a train station further away from the town than the airport is certainly one of the more 'unique' aspects of Bagan so it meant an early start to get there on time for the 7:30 train to Mandalay.

People at the station and in the train were quite excited to have a foreigner take this train as most just take the bus to Inle Lake or the boat or fly. As always it was a nice experience and nice to be around locals travelling.

Despite it being a short distance, the train takes forever to get to Mandalay but you can easily see why. The tracks are even worse than in England, at times it's so bumpy and shaky that you expect the train to fall on it's side or jump out of the tracks.

The views are not as nice here as on some other routes or the boat but you still get to see enough of the landscape and villages you pass through.

Despite the train being slow and bumpy, it's very relaxing to take it and just sit by the open window and watch the villages and landscape go by.

The train arrived in Mandalay just after lunch and at first I planned to go around take some more photos but decided to just take it easy instead. The evening was spent celebrating a friend's birthday.

Tomorrow late afternoon/evening, I will either take the train or bus to Inle Lake.