It is Faris’ Birthday, a landmark milestone of completing 18! We started off from Bagan to Inle Lake, an UNESCO site of freshwater lake with an active ecosystem that a large population is dependent on. The whole drive was cutting through a couple of mountains. For a driver, this is fun with the supplemental sceneries! For passengers, it is the benefit of sinking into the surrounding scenery. In between, we stopped by a coffee shop and struck a random ‘conversation’ with an elderly monk. We hardly understood any words between us but we managed to pull a conversation.
We reached Inle Lake by the evening. A beautiful sight of a freshwater lake that is endless and at a distant surrounded 360 by mountain ranges. Inle Lake supports many floating villages, carrying on with their livelihood of harvesting varieties of vegetables. The most notable – Inle Lake provides 60% supply of Tomatoes for the whole of Myanmar!
We checked into the hotel and refused to be helped with our luggage by the hotel crew who were all young ladies in their 20s and 30s, just seemed odd for young ladies to help with the teenagers’ bags! Given the low season, the hotel was all for us and got to interact personally with the hotel staff – extremely respectful, personable, immaculately attired in a dark blue lungi, light green top, hair nicely tied up, and thandaka uniformly smeared on their cheeks. The humility of the people reminded us of what one would witness in Japan.
Fast forwarding to the dinner at a restaurant, courtesy of Soe and his local connections. Again, we were accompanied by a couple of man’s best friends, hanging around by our feet but never bothered us. After the main course, the power was ‘cut off’ to be greeted with a candle light cake and a Birthday song by the restaurant crew (The English version of Happy B’day song is truly universal although one would struggle to properly construct a sentence in English). Faris was pleasantly surprised and that was an ‘icing on the cake’ for the day. Soe had done a fabulous job of arranging and making it a memorable one for Faris and the rest
