No, please not another water village!

Next stop: Inle Lake, probably the #2 tourist destination in Myanmar. Inle is surrounded by villages that start on the lake itself and gradually move up and onto dry land. There are even water bungalow resorts on the lake. I can't think of any reason you'd come here and isolate yourself from Myanmar by staying in a beachless resort, but people do. We stayed in Nyuangshwe, a short canoe ride up a canal from the lake itself where we were surrounded by a great local scene and a few businesses close to our hearts.

Our neighbor had an authentic homemade wood fired pizza oven that he knew how to use and just an appetite-whetting walk away was Pancake Kingdom serving up chocolate covered strawberry and banana love for breakfast, lunch or dinner. For us, it seemed like we stayed in a very local town, but Nyuangshwe is normally well touristed. More than once we found ourselves sitting alone in a cafe hearing from the owner that there were now only 10-20% the number of tourists as the same time last year.

Back on the lake, we wandered through a handful of villages on foot and also by boat through the many canals. As many fishermen as we saw on the lake we couldn't figure out what they are really doing because we never saw a single fish in a net or boat. There was very little fish in town, either. No wonder one person we met said the fishermen were the poorest people in the area. The lake edge does house large "floating gardens", though. Tomatoes and sugar cane are grown in great enough quantity to export from the area. We got really lucky and passed a shack where the sugar cane is pressed and boiled down into bars of pure goodness for easy transport to the sugar refineries. Oh, it's so yummy. They should just wrap it up with the label "instant cavity" and ship to America.

Aside from the general beauty, friendly people and interesting villages, the
highlight of the lake is the temple complex at Indein. After braving a half mile of
souvenir stall-laden covered walkway up to the temple, we continued on to a hill
behind that overlooks the temple and lake. What a view.

My vote for best religious sellout in Southeast Asia also sits on the lake: Jumping Cat Monastery. It has a real name, too, but that hasn't been relevant since the monks first taught cats to jump through hoops for their kibble.