Heho and beyond...

Mingalaba everybody, long time no see!!

We've had a bit of a change in pace since the last time we wrote on the blog - from the crazy mad rushing around to see stuff in Mandalay and Bagan, to the restful and relaxing life at the Inle Princess on Inle Lake in the Shan State (that's kind of the east part of Myanmar).

On Monday 2nd of April we packed up all our stuff again (which seems to be increasing as we go along!) and caught a flight from Bagan to Heho - the airports and planes are getting smaller and smaller, and don't even get me started on the state of the toilets in these places!!

Anyway, having arrived at Heho (many comedy moments have been had with the name of that unfortunate place!) we then got transferred by taxi to Inle itself, which was quite nice but they charged us $3 each to go into the town - cheek... It was at this point that I got quite a nasty surprise - my beloved had mentioned that we would have to go by boat to the hotel, so I figured it would be quite a nice ferry type thing, much like the King Harry down in Cornwall. But no, it was a boat that was about 25ft long, 3ft wide at the widest point and about a foot and a half above the water - and the damned thing was propelled by a long drive shaft with a little propellor on the end powered by a diesel tractor engine!!!

Those who know me will realize what an effort I had to make to go along with this plan - it takes me all my time to get on a flippin' cross channel ferry!! Still, it was a bit late to worry about it so in we jumped and off we went - it was actually quite a good way to get around once I get used to it, so Mike was forgiven!! It didn't take us long to get to the hotel, the last part of the boat ride was powered by two very energetic Burmese who leg-rowed the thing into the hotel - a feat which has to be seen to be believed, their balance is incredible and their leg muscles must surely rival Desert Orchid!!

The hotel itself was absolutely amazing, like stepping in to another world really. The staff were so friendly and unobtrusive that I think even the Orient Express could learn a thing or two - as soon as we stepped off the little boat, we were given cold face-cloths to mop our fevered brows and we were then ushered to the reception area to pick up our key. Our suitcases disappeared and were taken to our rooms.

The hotel was made up of 3 or 4 main structures built from teak wood and stained almost black to protect them from the searing sun. There was a huge dining and bar area on one side and on the other side of the covered walkway was a little souvenir shop selling all kinds of local produce such as Shan paper and jade jewellery.

The reception building was of the same material, and had high vaulted ceilings. The staff checked all our paperwork, and welcomed us to the Spa Hotel. This part of the honeymoon was a gift from Mike's friend Norman over in Singapore, so we had very special treatment. We were taken through the beautifully planted and maintained grounds to our Mountain View Chalet and left to settle ourselves in.

The chalet was, again, built from teak wood and the inside was panelled with woven bamboo to keep it cool. There were two big picture windows at one end over the seating area, and they looked out over the fields towards the mountains. The rest of the windows and the door all had shutters that we could open, and mosquito mesh to stop little buzzy critters getting in. The bed was very colonial and had a mosquito net to pull around it just incase!!

We'd had to get up quite early, so we had a bit of a nap and then went for some lunch. After lunch, we had a bit more of a kip and then took ourselves off to the Spa where we had a very relaxing and energising Anaite massage. The Spa facilities were pretty spectacular and, unsurprisingly, that wasn't the last time we went there!!

At dinner we were joined by Misuu, who was the wife of the owner Yannick (who turned out to be French and an ex-monk of the Buddhist variety!). She welcomed us to the hotel and had a chat with Mike, who she remembered from his previous working visit to the hotel back in 2002. Dinner was excellent, we both had traditional Shan style dishes and they were cooked to perfection - as we would expect!!

The next day we had to be up really early in order to catch our water taxi down to the bottom end of the lake to start our sightseeing tour. The lake was a whole lot bigger than I expected and, even with the driver giving it some welly, it still took about an hour to get to the market at the bottom end. Getting out of the boat turned out to be a mission, but at least I didn't actually fall in the water!!

Given that these people live right out in the middle of nowhere, it's amazing how good they've become at trying to sell things to unsuspecting tourists - the majority of stall holders even have a little chart with numbers on so that they can point to how many dollars they want for a particular item!! It does make life a lot easier though, and haggling is just a case of pointing to another number further up the list - there's still a lot of shoulder shrugging and grimacing/laughing, but a sale is usually made!!

So, having run the gauntlet of the stalls, we headed up the hill to the pagodas (of which there were many!) and had a look around. Considering that they are quite a basic people who don't have cars, trucks etc, it's impressive to think that these pagodas have been built here. There were quite afew kids running around on the steps to the top of the hill and they also had a good grasp of the english language when it comes to asking for money - they're very sweet though and they did make us laugh with some of their antics. Mike gave a couple of them some Smint sweets, which obviously they've never had before, and the expression on their faces was a picture as they savoured the minty coolness!!

Anyway, having taken a bunch of photos and given away a fair few kyat to the kids, we clambered back into the boat, reversed slowly out of the parking space and headed back up the lake. Our boat driver took us to various places on the way back, including a silversmiths; a cheroot rolling place; a boat making yard (where they still cut the teak with a long saw and one person under the log and one stood on top - knackering in that heat) and a craft shop where women from the Padouang tribe made shawls on looms strung around their bodies - they're the ones who have their necks made longer by the introduction of bronze rings around their necks when they are young, by the time they are 25 years old they have 8kg of bronze rings around their necks!!

Our driver then took us to a local eaterie on the lake for lunch - a place called the Golden Kite which looked typically Shan with the vaulted roof and open sides. When the menu and owner arrived to serve us, we were very surprised to learn that the speciality served there was pizza!! Yep, someone had sent the owner a pasta maker from Rome and had helped him organise a proper Italian pizza oven which he was very keen to show us - bizarre and quite surreal!! So, we partook of a Bolognese pizza (which was, to be fair, really quite good) and off we went again.

The next mission was to sail through the famous Floating Gardens. This was also quite impressive as the local peoples had built banks rising up out of the lake and were growing produce such as tomatoes on the top of them. I think I also saw gourd vines and beans of some sort growing on bamboo trellises, much like we would have in our gardens at home. These banks were probably 100ft in length each and were spaced about 5ft apart - they went on for as far as the eye could see and were tended to by gardeners rowing around in their boats. Amazing to see and a good example of the ingenuity of the people here.

Anyway, after that was the highlight of the day - the Jumping Cat Monastery, hurrah!!! I had been waiting the whole trip for this because, being the owner of probably the laziest cat around, I was bemused the fact that these cat's might actually jump through choice... The driver took us to the monastery and dropped us at the steps and in we went - it was quite a big place and the main part was laid out around a vast collection of Buddha images on four sides. We found the area where the head monk was taking his break (it was kinda hot, after all) and waited for some sort of feline acrobatics to occur...

We didn't have to wait long, a chap brought some little cat biscuit treat type things into the middle of the floor (I figured that there must be some sort of edible bribery involved!) and a couple of the cats got up and walked over to him (a third cat stayed asleep sprawled out on the floor and didn't even bat a whisker, looked a bit like Boost actually...). He got the hoop from wherever it was stashed and - hey presto - the little cat jumped through it!! Very cool, especially as he then got it to jump a couple more times after that, bless it's little paws. It'd obviously had enough after that so the chap went away again, but we have the moment recorded on video so that Boost can get the idea and perhaps amuse us with some hoop-jumping antics - Ali, if you can break the news to her, I'd be obliged!!

It was back to the hotel after that, and not before time because the sun was beginning to really beat down on the lake by then. So, we spent the afternoon relaxing and went for a soothing aromatherapy massage at the Spa - it would have been churlish not to!! Dinner was, again, exceptional - Misuu had come to see us while we were preparing to order our food and she recommended the Shan Dinner, given that she is from the area we decided to bow to her wisdom. And Misuu was most definitely right!! She also recommended that we try the massage that the Spa is famous for - the Four Hands Massage. As the name suggests, 2 therapists work on each person at the same time and mirror each others actions. Sounded like a good idea, so we arranged it for the next day.

However, before such indulgent relaxtion we had a birdwatching mission to accomplish. So, at 0600hrs on Wednesday (4th April) we climbed into another boat taxi and went off with our Inle Lake Reserve guide to see what bird-life we could see. It turend out to be something of an eye opener actually, and we were very lucky to see some species that our guide wasn't expecting. We saw 38 different species altogether and some, like the Western Marsh Harrier and the Purple Swamphen, were a complete surprise because they shouldn't have been there at this time of year. Our guide was also very pleased with the mornings work, so we all headed back to the hotel at about 1200hrs happy people.

Seeing as how we'd had an early morning, we spent the afternoon relaxing and then went for our Four Hands Massage at 1600hrs. It was certanly a very special massage and we both felt energised afterwards, which was just as well really because we had what turned out to be a very surreal evening ahead of us...

Our hostess, Misuu, had invited us to have dinner with her and two of her friends from France at a special secret location. Who were we to say no?! So, at the appointed hour, we trotted down to the bar to meet up with them. Audrey and Thomas were very nice people and probably about the same age as us, their English was much better than our French fortunately so language wasn't really a problem.

After a pre-dinner drink, Misuu announced that it was time to go for dinner so off we all trooped to a curiously shaped clay building not far from the reception area. Turns out that this was actually the wine cellar that Yannick had built a few years before, and that he had also furnished it to double as a special dining area. There was a long boat inside that had been lacquered by the local people with gold leaf and black paint, and a glass top had been put on it to form the tabletop. Under the glass was red Shan paper decorated with tattoo drawings that the local people use. There were candles all the way around and the table had been laid beautifully. It definitely had to be seen to be believed!!

Anyway, we took some photos and then dinner was served. We were expecting some local dishes, but it actually turned out to be a french-style fish soup, then Australian steak with various vegetables made into purees. And to follow was a very nice, but somewhat unexpected, chocolate mousse. In fact, probably the same chocolate mousse that Mike showed the chefs how to make back in 2002!!

After dinner, the conversation was flowing around the usual topics: politics, movies, Heat magazine, and so on. The tea arrived and, to my mind, it tasted a bit funny (sort of herbal if you get my meaning!) but it was the local brew so we all swallowed it down. It was at this point that it all got a bit strange...

The chat was centred around religion and Misuu asked if we were aware of the Opus Dei religious group - the "cult" made famous by yer one that wrote The Da Vinci Code. Well, it turns out that Misuu had had to leave Burma fairly quickly after her father (a politician) was put in prison. She went to France and enrolled in an Opus Dei school in Paris, where she spent 3 years. Given that she was raised as a Buddhist, Misuu found this quite a difference in belief system and she struggled with it in her second year.

Well, she then launched into this amazing monologue about the two different religions and her crisis of faith and conscience while she was performing some sort of Catholic ritual in the early hours of the morning. It went on for about half an hour and really did get us involved on her dilemma at the time. Anyway, she said that resolved to speak with the L'Abbe when she saw him and, just as she was thinking this he turned up. So, at 2am in a remote chapel somewhere, Misuu poured her heart out to this L'Abbe for about half an hour in the Confessional box. She was hoping for a sign that would tell her what she should do about her religion and beliefs.

After baring her soul to the L'Abbe through the partition in the Confessional, the L'Abbe asked her one question - "Child, are you a virgin?". Misuu said that she was rather confused by this but answered that, Yes she was a virgin. She then realised that L'Abbe hadn't actually listened to a word she was saying about her dilemma, but had been bashing the Bishop (as it were!) all this time!!! Unsurprisingly, Misuu took this to be the sign she was after and returned to Burma and Buddhism. Shortly after this rather surprising story ended, the dinner party broke up as it was getting late, and we all went our separate ways.

Now, we've been to some strange places and seen some bizarre things in our tine, but neither Mike nor I knew Misuu very well and we thought that the whole thing was really very surreal - what a story to tell to 4 people that you've only just met, in a wine cellar, sitting at a table made from a boat!!! Mike and I went back to our chalet in a state of bewilderment over the whole evening!!!

Anyway, the next morning we packed up all our bits again (still increasing with every stop we make) and caught the boat and then taxi back to Heho airport to catch our flight to Bangkok.

And we'll have to tell you all about that tomorrow because the beach is calling and we're off to top up our tans!! Hope y'all are doing ok, we've seen what the weathers like over there and it's better warm up before we get home, that's for sure!!

Catch yez tomorrow, have a good day :-)

Love from

Mike & Nicky xxxxxx

p.s. Liked the pix of Boost, Ali, I see she hasn't lost any weight pining for me while I've been away!!!