Another very early morning, boxed breakfast day, to head to the Mandalay airport to fly to Heho, the gateway to Inle Lake. We drove for about an hour from the Heho airport, partly over mountains.

A mountain home.

Cattle drive through a town seen on the way.

The back of the cattle drive.

Many farms in this area.

A house along the road with advertising for Dove soap and Black Shield stout.

With Merry Christmas and Happy New Year greetings from Black Shield.

Interesting house siding.

Entering the Inle Zone.

More farms.

Old houses and a modern house.

Passing a canal.

Our new mode of transportation for Inle Lake--long boats. Not easy to get into or easy to get out of, but plenty of hands to help you to do so. Our luggage went under tarps at the front of the boats and we took our hand luggage on the boat with us.

Off we go.

There were buildings and houses along the lake's banks and on stilts right on the water.

Probably hotels.

Sometimes we were moving as fast as the boat on the left and other times very slowly, waiting for other tour member boats to catch up. Most fun when going fast.

Supply boat.

Houses on stilts.

A mother and child washing clothes on the river.

Close-up.

Birds Preservation Area: "You can Watch Bird."

Umbrellas were available on the boats if you didn't want to be sprayed by the water.

The most amazing sights on Inle Lake: the fishermen. They steer and steady their boats with one foot on an oar so they can see a reed-free area in which to drop their nets.

Another fisherman.

Another fisherman.

A fisherman and his net.

I'm not quite sure as to how they fish with the nets, but I think one net is dropped into the water and then is covered by the larger net.

A fisherman using his foot to steer his boat and to drop his net.

Welcome of Kayla, which is a floating garden.

A house in the garden.

Work on the garden is done on boats. The sticks are to keep the dirt from floating away. We came back to view the gardens up closer later.

Another fisherman. There were many of them on the lake.

A stupa.

A house on stilts.

Another one.

A village. There are a number of small villages on the lake.

Another house on stilts.

Another village.

These are big houses.

A woman on a boat.

Our first stop would be here.

Our boats waiting for us to return.

We are at the Inle Heritage Hospitality Vocational Training Center to take an Inthar Heritage Cooking Class.

Closer-up.

Our cooking helpers. We were each given one of the baskets they are holding in their hands.

We climbed down to this vegetable garden.

And instructed as to which plants we would each pick a certain number of leaves from.

Harvesting our leaves.

Next, we picked items from their second garden.

Now for our cooking lesson.

Two per cooking table.

Busy at work.

Our cooking stove.

All the spices were already out for us: ginger, garlic, powered peanuts, salt, rice powder, paprika, tumeric, cinnamon, and seasoning powder.

First, fish was boiled in water.

When cooked, it was deboned and sliced.

The fish went back into the pot with eggplant to make fish soup with roasted rice powder and fresh mint leaf.

Chicken is then cut up.

Then put in this pan to make Shan style chicken curry with potatoes.

Our meal also included stir-fied seasonal vegetables. We didn't cook everything on the lunch menu.

Fried spring onion with tamarind sauce.

And Intha style green bean salad with roasted peanut powder. Banana cake was also served. All very very good. (Inle Lake Day 1 continues on the next slide show.)