BACKSTREETS OF NYAUNG SCHWE BY NIGHT.

Tonight, which by the way is my last in this town, (I fly back to Yangon tomorrow) I went out in the twilight for dinner. I thought I'd try the other of the two restaurants my guide recommended. It was a place called Chillax. On the way, I walked past the other one, where I had a very good lunch the other day. A bit early, it was empty, so I continued on to check out the other place. There was nobody there either. However, it looked interesting enough. More of a bar than a restaurant. So I took up a prime post on the verandah, right in the corner, so I could watch the passing parade. It had been an interesting walk, a little later than usual, and all the kids were home from school, many were playing in the street (remember that?), guys had finished work, and were starting to filter into the local bars and cafes, mums were cooking dinner. Even the temples were dark and silent. I ordered a Mandalay beer for starters. Out came a big bottle. Bewdy! An intriguing taste, light but malty, with a slight hint of mosquito coil. Then I noticed the mosquito coil burning under the table. Totally unnecessary, I thought, since I was wearing nearly a whole can of Bushman after shave, but you can't be too careful. Chillax, I mused. It reminded me of the kind of quip my daughter Alice would make. Like, "Take a chill pill, Dad", just after she clumsily dragged her school satchel down the side of my car and left a 6 foot long scratch in the duco, followed by a "Whatever". Parenthood! But I digress.

The restaurant was on a four way intersection, and just about every kind of vehicle imaginable went through there at some stage. Not a single one actually stopped, and quite a few had no lights on at all. What gives with this country? How do they get away with that kind of recklessness? My thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of my meal. Then a few other people started to rock up. Within 15 minutes, it was a veritable UN. A couple of apologetic Poms, saying "We'll have whatever you bring out, we don't want to be any trouble". A German couple, who I suspect were saying "When we rise again, we will obliterate this country and enslave its population. Ja, und make them drive properly", and then a French couple, who may well have been saying "Never mind the food, lets go back to bed".  There was even  group of four Japanese, who I think mistook the place for the bus station, because they walked right out again.

I do enjoy the mind games of just being an observer. Earlier today, I had been watching groups of 4 or 5 young punks about 15-16 years old, with the latest sharp haircuts, smoking cigarettes and hanging out and ogling girls from across the street. While groups of girls sat at little tables looking at the guys and giggling, while looking at their phones and drinking Sprite. Some things are universal and unchanging, and life goes on!

By the way, I am finally getting used to the Burmese cuisine, but I do think my gut flora (ok, bacteria then) have been mugged by the local ones, because.. oh never mind, you know what I'm saying. Back to the story. After a darn good dinner, which I'm sure my gut flora will appreciate eventually, it was dark, and I headed back to my lodging. Hmmm, tricky. Very few street lights, no footpaths, potholes full of water, wandering animals, no chance of seeing what I was stepping on, vehicles with no lights etc etc. Lucky I took my head torch. Pity I forgot the map. Now this is not a hard town to navigate, but at night, I didn't recognise a single bloody landmark, and pretty soon I was bushed. Merde! Ok Mike, don't panic, you're a bushwalker, just go back the way you came until you see something you recognise.

I forgot to mention that I have been giving my knees a pretty good workout on this trip. Up and down a zillion stairs, and a lot of walking. Its gotten to the stage that my good knee, the new one, feels great while I'm walking but hurts when I stop. However, the other one hurts when I walk and feels good when I stop. This means permanent pain somewhere, and my knees didn't appreciate the detour. So here I am, 6 foot 2 in a land of pygmies, dressed funny, painfully hobbling around carrying an umbrella from the hotel, with a torch on my head, totally lost and trying not to look conspicuous. Then a bloody dog started to have a go at me. "Not now, Fido, I'm not in the mood, unless you want your teeth rearranged by an umbrella handle." I was just about to commit to the Andrew Symonds slog-sweep straight through its head, when somebody called it off. Lucky! For the dog, I mean. I reckon it would have gone straight over deep backward square. Finally, after nearly being hit from behind by several vehicles, and rolling my ankle in a pothole, I saw something familiar and got back on top of it all.

So, there it is. My last night in the fascinating Inle Lake region. I am very impressed with Myanmar. It is an absolutely beautiful country, intriguing and historic, full of wonderful, friendly, hospitable and happy people, based on what I saw. Sure, it has some political issues, some very serious political issues, and one way or another, those in power will be held to account for their actions. But Myanmar has indicated that it wants to rejoin the international community, and is changing accordingly. I hope it doesn't take any backward steps. Right now, it is probably about as close as you could get to a visit to another century. See it now folks. Before it becomes just like everywhere else.

INLE LAKE

This is a truly fascinating place. Yesterday I spent the whole day out on and around Inle Lake. Its a big one, maybe not as big as Lake Titicaca (that's a guess), certainly not as big as Lake Superior, (which looks like the ocean, and took me three days to ride around half of its perimeter) but boy, is it different! And busy. Here is the chaos at one of the local jetties in Nyaung Schwe, where heaps of people were scrambling to get on or off the long, narrow wooden boats with the inboard engines and the big long propshafts. Not all were tourists, there was a lot of local traffic too.

A short run down the river took us, being my guide and me, out onto the lake proper. The lake is famous for many things, but one is the unique one legged stance of the fishermen, who use one leg to paddle an oar while standing on the end of a long shallow wooden boat, wielding a net at the same time. Tricky!

Just like that. The above photos cost me 5,000 Kyat. Why? Because I got sucked in! These acrobatic guys were waiting just past where the river enters the lake, where the tourists are at their most enthusiastic, and as soon as they saw me pointing my camera, they all started putting on these antics. And they were laying it on thick. At the same time, the boat driver backed right off the throttle, the boat slowed as it came off the plane, and next thing there were three "fishermen"all grabbing the side of the boat and demanding payment! I had just been scammed, and I can't believe I fell for the oldest trick in the book. The guide looked at me, expressionless, as in "nothing to do with me". I had been led into an ambush, but then I saw the funny side and cracked up laughing. It only cost about a dollar a photo anyway. Meanwhile, the real fishermen, like this one below, were too busy fishing to take any notice of the tourists.

We continued across the lake and into some wide channels at the south western corner, where the locals live in whole suburbs of houses built on stilts, over the water, to a placed called In Dein, where there were more stupas and tourists than you could poke a stick at.

The stupas in this area are quite different from those I saw elsewhere, particularly at Bagan. This is due to a significant ethnic difference in the people here. They are also in poor repair, due to the internal conflicts rampant in Myanmar. The locals have been busy fighting the Government for years, and this area was only declared safe 18 years ago, according to the guide. Nonetheless, it was quite a fascinating and bizzare place to walk around.

And just then, through the middle of all that.....

We continued on, back into the boat, to see what we could see.

These guys were collecting sand off the bottom of the channel, to sell,  I was told. In this area, the channels were shallow, and every so often, you would see a pile of sandbags on the levee bank just above the waterline, which were in effect sluice gates to let water into or out of the adjacent rice paddies. Wherever you go, farmers are quite ingenious people. In this area, I saw a lot of people washing their pots and pans, their clothes, their kids and themselves, in the channels. Ok, no prize for guessing my next question.

See that little bit attached to the side of the house? Yeah, well, not every house has one, but the whole idea was enough to put me off ordering fish till I get back to the coast. Make that the Australian coast.

I might not have a dunny, but I've got satellite TV. The other thing missing in Myanmar is flywire. Yes, alright, you could get malaria or dengue fever. But - and here's the real bonus - you can spit straight out the window. And there's an awful lot of that going on, believe me. Men, women and kids, everyone's doing it.

The main business in this region of the lake, apart from fishing, is growing vegetables, mostly tomatoes. They are, in effect, hydroponically grown on floating islands of vegetation, which are staked to the lake- bed with bamboo, to stop them being blown away by the wind. The whole production process is done by boat, little flat wooden jobs like this one below. Quite incredible.

Then the produce is taken to Nyaung Schwe and other lakeside towns by boat, then trucked all over the country.

Where there are people, there are temples. Some on dry land, some on poles above the water. These are the girls who organise the boat traffic at the entrance to a particularly significant one. Yelling out instructions to boatmen, passengers, and anybody else within earshot.

All in all, a great day of sightseeing. I can honestly say I've never seen anything like this before.

This morning, I ventured into town again, as the Internet had been down in this part of town for nearly two days. And it still drops out whenever it feels like it. There was a market happening, and as usual it was full on. Sights, smells, hustle and bustle. Busloads of people had come in from the outlying areas to sell or to stock up. It wasn't hard to tell the ones from the sticks.

 How about the scales!

This lady, below, was skinning and slicing durian, the worst smelling fruit on the planet (tastes great though!). Even so, it came a distant second to the stench emanating from the open drain running through the middle of the market, full of rotting fruit and veg, mixed with stagnant black stormwater. I think I would put it in my top 5 of all time on the stench-o-meter.

Now, fellow bikers, check this out.

I thought, hello, things are looking up, there's a KTM. Fancy a ride on a Super Dake. Yes, DAKE.

OK then, Honda XR or Yammy TTR? No, its a Toyomax. Of course it is!

OK, my final offer, a CBR. Not a Honda CBR, a Kenbo CBR. Ken-what??

Oh, bo. These are all Chinese, and I just don't know how they get away with this kind of blatant rip off. Its completely outrageous! Are the lawyers all too busy suing people for jaywalking? I am reliably informed that just about every set of wheels around here comes from China. This has to be hurting the Japanese, big time. They cost about  third of what you'd pay for a Jap equivalent. When they melt or fall apart in about a years time, you just throw it away and then you just go and buy another one. Not a bad marketing strategy. Maybe Donald Trump is right about China. (Can't believe I just said that, but I think he's nailed it!). Would this happen in Australia? Could this ever happen in Australia? Would we buy cheap Chinese crap instead of a reliable quality product? Well, friends, we are already doing it every time we go to the supermarket or to Bunnings. Read the labels. And I reckon that's only the thin end of the wedge. Having exported our manufacturing industries to Asia and priced ourselves out of the market, we are about to get shat upon from a great height. All the while making lattes for each other, and suing those damn jaywalkers. She'll be right mate. Yeah??

Might have to test ride one of those Super Dakes though. It's probably better than the real thing.