Day 63 - Rustic

I feel like I owe the non-Portuguese-speakers amongst you an apology for the lack of content of the recent English posts, but these have just happened to fall on our travelling days, which is once again the case. Having originally planned to take the bus, which would have taken us more than eight hours on rough and potentially deadly roads, I convinced Renu to fly instead since the tickets were not very expensive. This led us to one of the funniest flights I have ever been a part of as we experienced what flying must have been like in the 1960s.

After seeing our boarding pass (pictured above) being manufactured through a combination of handwriting and stamping by the check-in staff we proceeded to the gate, through a security check that did not require us to take anything out of our bags or pockets. We then waited for our flight to be called and boarded the coach onto the plane, an ATR-72-600 that featured an EasyJet-style free-seating configuration. As we daftly decided to sit at the back of the bus (for the whole 30 seconds of that trip) we were the last to board and therefore ended up on opposite ends of the plane.

Due to the early start and the length of the flight (scheduled for 40 minutes) I pretty much slept through the entire thing, and upon landing we disembarked on the runway, about 50 metres wide of the next plane that landed only a couple of minutes later. Note to pilots approaching the adorably-named Heho Airport - make sure you stick to the centreline! The taxi journey to our hotel took twice as long as the flight (!), but when we got there we were pretty happy with how idyllic the place was. On the northern edge of Inle Lake, it somehow manages to keep an impressive peacefulness despite the dozens of motor boats that roam the lake at any given time.

Eager to explore the area and having decided to leave the boat trip for the following morning, we hired some bicycles at the hotel and headed to a nearby restaurant for some lunch. While the food was tasty and the owner was kind enough to let us come back and pay later (as we had run out of cash and the nearest ATM was at our hotel…) the food took so long to arrive that by the time we were done the sun was nearly setting. We decided to leave the caves we had planned to explore for the following day and head back to the hotel, where we relaxed overlooking the lake before I decided to go for a late-evening-swim in the excellent pool, which mostly served to remind me that I have not done any meaningful exercise since Kandy, which was a while ago. Breathlessness was, however, not my main worry as every time I stopped in between sets I got devoured by mosquitoes, reassuring me that those Malaria pills are not being taken in vain…

Cheers,
J-Wowww