Wet 'n' Wild

We knew when we booked our flights to Myanmar that we had inadvertently timed our stay to coincide with one of the country’s major celebrations – Thingyan and the Burmese New Year. Running for about a week in April, the Buddhist water festival of Thingyan is celebrated across the country in what can only be described as a giant water fight, and which culminates in New Year festivities. Our schedule was pretty tight so we had no choice but to come to Myanmar at a time when all buses and transport grinds to a halt as the people take to the streets to dance and fling water at each other. We ended up in the Inle region for 6 days, staying in a village outside of the Lake area called Nyuang Shwe. We were lucky enough to have chosen an absolutely beautiful family run guesthouse (the Golden Empress), which turned out to be a perfect place to shelter from the water throwing. Our double en-suite room was gorgeous and the included breakfast was absolutely to die for - juice, coffee/tea, mountains of fresh fruit, toast with butter, jam and marmalade and the option to have eggs in a variety of ways or a banana and chocolate pancake! Given the festival, many of the activities and top things to do were closed, so our days focused on sampling some of the most highly rated lunch and dinner spots in Nyuang Shwe. We had some seriously delicious North Indian food (one meal of which was actually in a bizarre Eminem themed restaurant), amazing dim sum, some pretty good Italian pasta and incredible grilled vegetable sandwiches on homemade bread. We've since decided that getting fat from delicious food tourism is actually the best.

Most of the face-stuffing was done in the evenings or by cleverly running through the backstreet of the town, because if you’re on the streets during Thingyan, you’re fair game. Groups of young people stand at the side of the road in make shift water stations, blasting thumping music, dancing and jumping around and throwing whole buckets of water on whoever walks, bikes or drives. During our arrival on an open sided taxi, laden with our bags and feeling super tired, we were soaked by water guns from the side of the road – Joe even took a whole bucket of water to the face!! Whilst the lack of transport meant that our original plan to travel to Mandalay and work our way back to Yangon via Inle Lake and Bagan was no longer an option, we were able to experience a unique tradition at a time of the year filled with sheer joy and celebration. It’s also the hottest, driest time of year in Myanmar, so being soaked head to toe in the sun wasn’t actually too unpleasant!

We read online about which would be the best bus company to take the journey with (people seemed to recommend JJ Express but this was mostly back in 2014). Instead our hostel organised a cheaper ticket for us with another company. The bus that arrived was a pretty decent VIP bus, with three seats to a row, good recline and good leg room. We were given snacks and drinks, as well as a tooth brush and paste which was a bit unexpected. As we were travelling during the peak holiday season, the beginning of our trip out of Yangon was spent in a LOT of traffic, adding about 4 hours on to the 12 hour journey time. Despite a power cut at the station and a small delay in the arrival of the bus, the whole thing was painless and easy. Most people spoke some English and they were very helpful in getting our bags tagged and on to the bus. We were dropped outside of our final destination where we changed from the coach to a small transfer bus. It was free to be taken to the station and only 1000 kyat per person to be dropped directly at our hotel, so that was helpful as we didn’t have to try and find a taxi. As with all foreign visitor to Inle, we did have to pay a rather expensive entrance fee (it worked out about £15 for both of us) which was not dissimilar to the price we paid for our bus tickets, but the money is used for conservation in a stunning place, so we can’t begrudge paying – it’s more just being aware that you will have to pay this toll on the road before you reach any accommodation, so make sure you have enough!