Inle Lake - Burma by Bike

After a brief overnight stop in Rangoon, an early morning internal flight, the holiday starts in earnest with three nights in Nyguanshwe a bustling town immediately to the north of the Inle Lake.

Early morning departure

The lake is one of Myanmar's most important tourist attractions and large new developments in the surrounding hills suggest an explosive growth of interest. Perhaps the most iconic attraction are the fisherman on the lake who guide their boats standing up and with a leg wrapped around an oar. The towns around and on the lake are built on stilts and support a population of some 70,000 who make a living from tourism, fishing and agriculture. The agriculture is particularly interesting with tomatoes and other vegetables growing on beds of water hyacinths floating on the lake. The agriculture is relatively recent, only started in the 1960s, and agriculture and population growth is threatening the survival of the lake and the very thing that attracts the tourists. Tourists and products to sustain them are ferried around the lake at great speed in long narrow canoes powered by ancient diesel engines. It's an amazing place but with an uncertain future.