Woke up early as people were up at 5.30 in my room to leave for a sunrise boat tour (I found out afterwards), I had breakfast at the hotel which was pretty good, unlimited (well maybe not) watermelon and toast and 2 omelettes to order which took ages to come. Spoke to some Dutch girls over breakfast and got a few tips, then Marcus came round but he wasn't going to leave on the bikes until 10am and I didn't fancy waiting around for an hour so decided the leave earlier. Went to find a bike and was selecting the best when a couple took 2 I was considering and then I found that most of the best ones were locked a bit like when you get to a hotel pool and all the sun loungers have towels on. Found one that was ok though and headed off via a temple on the edge of town which was fairly impressive. It was already getting a bit warm and my next stop was a winery which had quite a hill but I made it almost all the way only to find that most people just park the bike and take a shortcut. the place was pretty empty, wine drinking at 9.30 not being the normal done thing but there was a couple and an Indian guy who I talked to a bit. The tasting board of 4 wines was 5,000, which is not bad but then the wine wasn't great. Left there and headed back to the main road and stopped at a monastery where I put my trousers on and took my shoes off and this creepy monk guy decided to show me around following me and pointing out the Buddhas. There really wasn't much to see and then afterwards I showed him my map of where I was going and thanked him and it was like I was his best friend shaking my hand and everything. Checked my phone and I seemed to be low on data which was annoying as having a mobile phone which works in Myanmar is really useful. I looked at the map and decided to checkout the Inle resort spa which was really nice and they kind of let foreigners wander in as they don't really know if you are just snooping like me or if you genuinely belong there for some reason. the place had palm trees and was on the lake and it kind of looks like a good cheaper than some places honeymoon destination. after that I carried on the road south to a bridge, which was wooden and had loads of tourists on as well as boats trying to get people to take them for a tour around the lake. I tried to get the best picture of the bridge I could and to do that I needed more of an angle so I tried to make a walkway through some watery area and got across ok but then couldn't go much further and then when I jumped back across one of my feet went straight into the mud. I should have just removed my shoes and these were my only trainers now that I'd thrown my others away after the trek. It really was a beautiful day with some blues skies, no real rain and lots of sun. I went further south and came to a market which was packing up but seemed to sell more ornaments for tourists than other markets I'd seen before. Looking further south there was just hotels and nothing else on map so I turned back and went to a Pagoda which was just like loads of others and then I stopped for a lunch of avocado salad (not frozen) and a potato salad (possibly not cooked) as the place was pretty cheap. I left there heading inland to a natural swimming place which was not that easy to get to as it was on a muddy path but at least the path was mostly downhill and ok to go on. Got there and it was a pretty big pool and given the temperate I was happy to strip off for a swim. Left there as I'd got some message from Marcus that he was going to the winery so I headed that way and the path was much worse but at least downhill, it was pretty muddy and then there was a stream I had to cross and a motorbike coming the other way went through and stalled but he got it started again. I got to the winery and met Marcus and the 3 girls there. It was much busier than earlier but we eeked out a table and 5 chairs and they all did the tasting where the Dutch girls in particular were looking forward to the cheese so I tried to let them down gently as it was just a few small pieces of processed cheese (like Kraft slices). We all headed back to town and went to our hostels to get things together before meeting at 5pm to go to the balloon festival in Taunggyi. I rode to the hotel we were supposed to be at and was a few minutes early, Lotte was also there and we bought tickets, the others turned up and Marcus and Nina already had tickets from this morning, they also had some beer and he'd found some cheap rum so I got on the bike to quickly get something and got a small bottle of whisky for next to nothing. the pickup turned up and at least it wasn't full as it can be hard sitting squashed up. We had a good journey although I ran out of drink and met two Americans. Traffic was ok at first and we had heard it was bad, but when we got there we had to go through the town and that's where the traffic was terrible. We eventually made it and then the van couldn't park there so we were moved on until we could get out and go see the festival, it may have been 7 and we had to be back by 11. there were lots of stalls selling food and drink and the guys wanted to sit down and eat but I grabbed some street food instead as I was feeling more adventurous and it was cheaper and quicker. We saw the first balloon go up but it was quite a distance from where we were so afterwards we headed that way and the 2 dutch girls complained that they had been groped so we changed our formation to boy, girl, girl, boy, girl, boy or similar and headed to where the balloons went up from. We got there and were standing near the path as the hot air balloon went up and then released fireworks early and they came screaming down near where we were hitting some people who had to put some fires out so after that we moved further away to safety and sat down on the grass. The locals were really friendly and we were a bit like celebrities as they wanted selfies with us and everything we did was somehow amusing. There were lots of people selling food, drinks, soup there and quite a few people were getting something. The remaining balloons were a bit safer but good to see apart from one which was sponsored and had lights on it but no fireworks. Some of the guys had gone off to the toilet and it was close to 11 so we had to head back to find the truck and all the Israelis who were also on it earlier were there already and had taken the best seats and wanted us to be quiet as they were trying to sleep as maybe they'd done the sunrise tour. We then sat going nowhere for an hour as the van was blocked in before slow progress and eventually we were moving. It was an uncomfortable journey back with lots of bumps you can feel more at the back and I got to the hotel around 2am.
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January 2017
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