Everyone went to sleep with feet facing away from the Buddha shrine, so morning dawned much more peaceful than the last! After a breakfast of fruits and chocolate pancakes (I supplied the chocolate the night before), we start out on our finally stretch towards Inle lake. We arrive at the toll booth an hour later, and pay the 13,500 Kyat fee to enter the area. We continue up a gravel road until we reached the top of the last hill we have to crest, and are finally able to see the pale blue of Inle lake in the far distant horizon, nearly looking like the blue sky above it. Knowing this is the last, and shortest day of hiking, our soar and sunburnt bodies were filled with extra gusto. We marched on for the last 14 kilometers, and stopped only once at a small shop to drink tea, and fill up on water. A few hours of walking, and descending later, we arrive to another large forest of bamboo. We come to a restaurant where we have our last lunch with our guide, and choose to spend the 1000Kyats(~$1CAD) extra per person to extend our boat trip from a 1 hour ride to a 3 hour tour. 

Finishing lunch, we said farewell to our guide Khuso, and are introduced to our boat guide, who leads us a kilometer or so down a dusty dirt road to the river/canal where a collection of long and thin teak motorboats float moored to either side of the narrow body of water. Our new guide pulls out 5 wooden folding chairs, just wide enough to fit in his narrow boat, and places them in a row, one after the other. Then he pulls out lifejackets, which he wrapped around the backs of the chairs to be used as cushions (or perhaps safety, should something go wrong?). Using a long bamboo pole, he skillfully works his boat between the many others, and secures it to the small boarding dock on our side of the ‘river.’ Once we are all seated, the boat is off down the narrow watery channel. Occasionally another boat travels towards us from the opposite direction, and the two boats slow to pass, within touching distance of each other. Sometimes the channel gets so narrow that grass and floating reeds touch either side of the boat as we pass through. 15 minutes later the waterway opens up a little, and our boat slows down. We make a right turn down a wider passage, and suddenly find ourselves in the midst of wooden houses and buildings on stilts on either side of us, with the occasional metal or wooden bridge spanning the gap over top. 

Soon after entering this town lifted up on stilts, we make a left turn, and pull in beside a dock to one such building. It’s a silversmith shop; or at least, it’s a tourist attraction with men working bellows, furnace, hammers and tongs to simulate the production of raw ore into pure silver, and then jewelry. We walk through the tutorial, are shown the merchandise room, then head back to the boat. No more than a few minutes pass in the boat before it slows down for another stop. The realization hits that we must hoist our bags onto our backs and get out of the comfort of the boat, almost made us not want to leave! After the last few days of walking through the tremendous heat, time in the boat was a welcome luxury! 

We enter the cotton weaving shop, and are shown a bunch more merchandise. Further in the shop, we meet two ladies who are weaving cotton by hand. It is hard not to notice the stack of gold-coloured rings rising up from their shoulders to their chins. These are Kayan ladies (also known as Padaung). It was interesting to see this cultural practice, yet it was also an awkward moment for me, as I couldn’t shake the thought that these ladies were on display for the purpose of selling merchandise. In the past, it is said that these ladies wore rings around their necks to protect them from the attack of tigers, who often attack the neck. Now, we are told, they do it to preserve cultural identity, but the process starts when the woman are very young, so some moral debate has risen on the subject, since the process does damage to the clavicle, rather than actually extending their necks. 

We arrive at a Weaving shop, which we are told is our last stop that we must get out of the boat for. Inside, a lady cuts sections of lotus flow stems, and pulls from it long strands of fiber that she rolls together to make lotus yarn. It is the most interesting thing we have see yet, and we hardly want to move on to view the looms and other machines used to weave the yarn into a fabric. We are eager to get back to the boat, knowing that the next stop is Nyaung Shwe, and our hostels waiting with warm showers! 

Finally, after a long day of trekking, boating, and informative workshops, it was time to take the hour long boat ride across the lake from the south end to the north, where all of our hostels and large bags of belongings waited. We headed out onto wide water, and our guide opened up the throttle until we were bouncing speedily across the lake. Evan and I, sitting in the back, were completely drenched in no time, but the heat was so great that, when we slowed down near the end, we were mostly dry when we arrived at the Nyaung Shwe boat launch, a (luxury?), the others knew nothing about. Like most train, bus, or boat stops, there were taxi drivers waiting for us to take us where we needed to go. Everyone said their good-byes to Evan, as he had booked a flight out of Yangon for the next morning, then he and I were off to the bus station to grab a ticket for him to the big city. 

Pulling up to an Inn and checking in seems like such a foreign thing after spending nights in small villages with no power or running water. Evan and I rushed excitedly to the showers and enjoyed our first one in three days. An hour later, we hug good-bye and remind each other that this is not “good-bye,” so much as “see you later.”