Bergdorf Trekking at Inle Lake

On the day after our successful and fascinating boat trip on Inle Lake, we had to get up early again as we had a trekking tour to a mountain village planned for that day. However, the perfect breakfast at our hotel compensated us sufficiently for the early wake-up, just like the day before.

For the trekking tour, we had hired a local guide through our hotel who accompanied and guided us throughout the day along with Annika and Paul. In addition, he explained a lot about the region, the plants, agriculture, and many other topics in really good English and almost always had an answer to our questions. Ong, our guide, was an absolute stroke of luck and we would like to recommend him better at this point, but he doesn't have a phone number, email address, or website. Therefore, if you are interested in a one- or multi-day trekking tour in the region, you should inquire about Ong at the Hotel Emperior Inle ;-)) - it's worth it.

Our trekking adventure started directly in our hotel at 08:00 in the morning. After a short walk through the town of Nyaung Shwe, the path led us directly towards the mountains. Already in the first small village that we passed, there was a lot to see for us. We walked right past the "kitchen" of a small school where the food was being prepared for the many hungry children.

The next stop took us to a small cave and Buddhist temple complex in a monastery, which we gladly visited. In the cave, a monk actually lived until a few years ago, until a small house was donated for him by well-meaning Buddhists. At the same time, there are nearly 1,000 small Buddha statues in the cave, which made the short visit really interesting for us.

Then we started the ascent and were able to observe some Burmese people working in the fields and agriculture. It is really unimaginable how the fields are still cultivated here and reminiscent of the previous century in Germany. The accommodations for the harvest workers barely deserve the name and are just a shabby roof over their heads. Once again, we thought about how fortunate we are in comparison and how grateful we should be.

During the hike, we also saw how dragon fruits, papayas, mangos, and other delicacies are grown. After a longer ascent, which was only interrupted by a short rain shower, we took a short break during which we had to clean our shoes from the dirt. Even small amounts of rain were enough to transform the ground into a kind of clay that mercilessly stuck to our shoes, and so we unwillingly carried a few kilograms up the mountain. At the same time, we were lucky with the weather again because in the rainy season, we should actually expect a lot more rain, but we only had a rain shower on that day.

We had another interesting stop at a small hut where a man was actually producing fireworks rockets in meticulous manual work, right in the middle of the mountains around Inle Lake, mind you in Myanmar :-D. We watched in amazement as he manufactured the rockets, which were intended for a competition in a few months that is about the prestige of the hometown.

After another ascent, we were rewarded with a great panorama...

We reached our destination of the hike, a small mountain village, shortly after noon, and we were amazed not only by the hospitality but also by the hospitality we enjoyed because the lunch was simply amazing. We were served chips and tea as an appetizer, fried noodles with vegetables and chicken as the main course, and fresh fruits for dessert, along with coffee and tea, and all of this in a rather meager dwelling.

Examples of this are the "toilet house" and the "bathroom".

For the descent, Ong chose a different route than the way there, so we got a different impression of the countryside and its people once again. What you always have to expect in Myanmar is to encounter a monk, no matter where you are :-).

When asked where he was heading, he replied that he was on his way to a monastery, about another 3 hours of additional ascent from the mountain village we visited, mind you in flip-flops...

For us, the super interesting hike finally came to an end after 22km, overcoming 350 meters of altitude, and packed with countless impressions, and the well-deserved beer should not be long in coming :-D.

On our last day in the Taunggyi region, we visited the Pindaya Caves, which are located about 60km and 1.5 hours drive from Nyaung Shwe. These are Buddhist temple complexes in a cave with countless Buddha statues. The cave is nice to look at and interesting to visit, but most of the Buddha statues have only been donated in recent years, so the cave with its many Buddha statues reminded us a bit of an attraction purely for tourists.

By the way, we had an "insane" driver on the drive, who did not shy away from any daring overtaking maneuver and only braked in case of emergency, i.e. when a herd of cows had strayed onto the road.

After visiting the Pindaya Caves, we made a short stop at an umbrella factory where rain umbrellas and decorative umbrellas are made in painstaking craftsmanship. From the production of the paper to the final product, we were shown the individual production steps. We were quite amazed by the manual wood lathe and woodworking.

After 4 packed days in Nyaung Shwe, the next Myanmar highlight awaited us with the day bus trip to Bagan.