Bus was so comfortable I almost didn't wake up through the trip at all until three big guys suddenly came onto the bus and demanded 12500 Kyat each for entrance fee. The sky was still dark, and it felt like they were just short of a gun in their hand.
And this, was the biggest running joke of our trip: 土匪s. A pity I didn't get a photo of it
Reached our destination soon after and received news of my surprisingly good results; good start to the day!
Took a name card from one of the guys who pestered us once we got off the boat and I must say the people here are really trying to help, albeit with their own agendas (nothing harmful anyway) and we would later on employ his service eventually. Dropped our bags at the hotel since it's too early to check in, headed out for breakfast which was local Shan noodle with 油炸糕 (and they pronounce it like how we say it in hokkien), perhaps the oil was more unhealthy but it was definitely more tasty.
Left for our boat trip into the Inle Lake after breakfast.
After 1.5 hour of speeding through the lake, we reached the attractions: lotus fibre fabric weaving, silverware making, and tobacco making.
A pagoda, lunch at a restaurant on the lake, and then a monestry before we head back for land.
Came back, check in, and then rested for an hour before we headed out to the winery vineyard with a tuktuk.
Wine was really fresh but food was nothing impressive. Came back and we retired for the night early.
Next morning we woke up early in hope of taking a morning bus to Bagan but miscommunication the day before led to the receptionist not booking our bus ride the day before and they were all sold out by the time the mistake was found. We decided not to wait 12 hours for the next 11-hour overnight bus and took a gamble. So we asked for a bus ticket to Mandalay and hoped for the best after the 8-hour journey. Alas, after a relatively uneventful minivan ride, we reached our previous city to find that all available bus to Bagan have been sold out and the next one possible is an overnight one at 930pm. Our gamble failed but we found a nice taxi uncle who followed us around and bringing us to different bus companies in hope of finding a bus for us; and I choose to believe he did it purely to showcase the good side of Myanmar (for the fact that he asked if Myanmar and its people are nice while we were walking around). We got desperate and asked if he wanna drive us to Bagan, half jokingly, but he says no problem! He even discounted his initial offer from US$30 to US$25. Pung thought he might have knew we would not be able to find a bus right from the start but I chose to believe he had purely good intentions from the start.
I've learnt to be scheming and reject local drivers who swarm to you once you alight from your transport but now I've learnt that many a case, a polite answer (or rejection) does you no harm, in fact, most of them harboured truly good intentions and just want to help, especially in this region that seems to be underrated for their service. Perhaps biased views are set when we associate disorder with less development, but this trip really changed my views of so many common misconception we have of our distant neighbors...
And back to the road, it was an arduous journey, most painful of which is our butt. Things would have been better if the driver's wife didn't follow! But their humble love (he did forget about his wife and tried to drive off without her on two occasions though haha) and the driver's earnestness defeated these flaws and I truly felt that he deserves our money; I would have gladly gave him his original quotation of US$30 if we're not on a tight budget. A funny incident also happened when one of the bridge along the way was flooded by the heavy flow of the river following the earlier storm! We thought we would be straddled while we see the tall buses drive into the stream of river with difficulties but thank goodness there was another small road for small vehicles. But that leads us to a wooden bridge... which, honestly, doesn't seems like it'll hold the weight of a car with 5 people inside... And then there was a jam while we were in the middle of the bridge. And then Brandon started to comment about how there might be a guy asking for "entrance fee" at the end of the bridge. Haha. And in the midst of fearing for my life, we broke out in laughter. The driver couple laughed as well, albeit probably at their own jokes about our situations.
After a treacherous 4.5 hours, we finally reached our next destination, Bagan.
