The next morning it was time for a short ride across the river to Mingun, the site of what was supposed to be the biggest pagoda in the world until King Bodawpaya died during construction which then ceased. Only the base had been built and it has been damaged by earthquakes since then. You can climb to the top but it doesn’t seem very safe.


























a boatload of cows!



And that was pretty much it for Mandalay. Not my favorite stop on the tour, but there were some things worth seeing.

Next day I flew from Mandalay to Heho which is the nearest airport to Inle Lake. My flight was on one of Air Bagan’s Fokker 100’s, one of which crashed on landing at Heho recently apparently due to pilot error. Once you land at Heho you have to drive for an hour or so to a small town from which you take a long narrow boat to the lake. Because of its location in the mountains it gets very cool here, especially at night. I ended up liking Inle Lake way more than I expected to. There are many small villages situated around the lake each with its own market and so forth. I will admit that I am a bit afraid of water and boats so this wasn’t ideal for me but you take boats to get everywhere. Thanks to the clean air and low light pollution the night time skies were very nice.





After checking in at Inle Resort we took the boat to lunch and then visited Shwe Inn Dain Pagoda. Lots of ruined old stupas and monuments here.