Full Moon festival at Inle Lake!

This year for the Full Moon festival, I snagged two lovely ladies- Candacee and Jenni- and hopped on a quick flight to Inle Lake. It is located on the eastern part of Myanmar, in the Shan State! It was a perfect trip- with fun adventures of which you can read about below!

Day One: Landed and immediately hopped in a taxi that took us to a local vineyard... beautiful scenery with weak wine (to be quite frank). It was incredible to see the blue skies and stretch of vineyard- I felt like I was in a bit of a fairy tale, to be quite honest. The best part? What you would think of as Kraft singles cheese cut in strips and placed on our salad. Oh Myanmar :)

 

After a few glasses of wine, we headed to Taunggyi, where we were able to witness the last day of the Full Moon festival. Holy toledo, was it something else. We drove through the town and thought that perhaps the driver missed where we were supposed to stop and then, BAM! We looked out into a crowd of thousands of people and paper-animal lanterns in the sky. It was something else, let me tell you. Some of the sights include: Pa Oh people with beach towels wrapped around their heads, youth gangs dancing with joy because their lantern did not have a hole burnt through it before making it the clear sky and children with Angry Bird beanies- EVERYWHERE. It was a blast! Here are just a few of the pink cows we saw float toward the heavens...

Day Two: We ventured out to the lake. 

Oh my goodness, was it incredible. We saw people living on the water in houses made out of bamboo stilts, growing tomatoes on top of the surface, rowing boats with their right leg, children hauling water out of their canoe, women weaving scarves with thread from the material of lotus flowers and so much more. Here is a picture of the fishermen we saw- who catch fish to sell in the markets or to simply take home for dinner. 

We also saw the ancient pagodas in Inthein, where we climbed old brinks and gaped at the crumbly, old temples. 

We did make a new friend, this little puppy!!! found us and decided to jump a few of our pictures. 

                                  Day Three: We woke up at too-early and went on a 10 mile trek!
As you can see, we had the cool "snow" which you would know to be fog, follow us around all day. It was gorgeous- we saw everything from a little garden snake, wild poinsettias, village kids playing with hand-made clay marbles and every crop you could imagine! We even ate coffee, which I had no idea was red when ripe and surprisingly refreshing. 

At the end of our long hike, we walked along this bridge to a  canoe that loaded us up and  brought us back to our  homely abode. I thought that this picture may give you an idea of what people on the water may wear or do at the end of a long day at work. 

 Day Four: The day of biking, pancakes and wine! We biked through town and made it a point to stop and have the better wine of our trip, after seeing how they make the wine and ship it out around the country. I think what was so cool about this company, Red Mountain Winery, was that the owner was a local guy who hired a french expert to come in and show him how to make amazing wine. If you ask me, it was one of the best I have had in Myanmar! After biking and eating pancakes all day, we got on our long bus ride home and rolled into Yangon 12 hours later. If you were to come and visit Myanmar, know that I would take you to Inle in a heartbeat- as I can easily say it is one of the most magical places I have ever been....

Can't forget to incorporate a jumping picture! See: me, Candacee and Jenni!