Inle lake Princess Resort is a special place right on the edge of a very peaceful arm of the lake. It was such a delightful place to just ‘be’ that I decided to forgo the next day of exploration in favour of a quiet day in the gardens of the hotel – and I had a massage!  So good.

After long days of travel, this place offered peace and quiet.  It was somewhere just to have a lazy day!  David had time for a quiet walk with me before he set out on another day of exploring.

Individual cottages are spread out along the waterfront. Ours was the very last cottage meaning that we were about a kilometre from the central area with reception and restaurant. But the walk was delightful with water on both sides of the long peninsular like dyke on which the cottages were built.

Along the way there was always someone to stop and chat to – even in sign language. We stopped to say thank you to these lady gardeners who make the gardens a delight. Their wheelbarrow was a wooden dray they pulled along with them.

Some larger cottages are built over an inner pool that’s filled with waterlilies.

There was no shortage of water lily reflection photo opportunities.

Beautiful water lilies are like a magnet to a photographer.

The gardeners keep the lily pond in good condition, using one of the local dug out boats to negotiate the weeds.

The weeds were taken out and added to the field that lay between the hotel and the village.  In this way, arable land is added to the village fields.  A stand of corn was growing in the field while we were there.  All the vegetables we tasted were really very good.

Cattle egrets found the newly added earth and weeds a good place to look for food.

The deck of the restaurant was bedecked by flowers such bougainvillea in large pots.

The long walk was rewarded by the pleasure of joining others to enjoy a delicious breakfast on the deck.

The deck is a great place to watch boats go by and in the early morning the reflections were a delight.  No boats are permitted to use engines in this zone so it’s all very peaceful. This long tail boat was coming in to the hotel dock to pick up guests for a day out on the lake – hence the blue chairs.

No engines, no noise on the local dugout boats – just ‘person power’.

There’s no rush or hurry for those using these boats.

This boat is bringing people who work at the hotel.  They come from the nearby village – no chairs for them.

The edge of the deck was decorated with a delightful array of wood carvings – something for which Burmese craftsmen in Mandalay are famous.

Every few metres along the deck there’s another fascinating wood carving.

 This wooden lady in a hammock looks as relaxed as I felt.

The roofs were adorned with beautifully carved end pieces.

Back near our cottage, a bridge crosses the lily pond.

That bridge leads to the massage rooms. I did enjoy my massage later in the day.

In the pond beside our cottage I found this beautiful lily surrounded by air bubbles. Perhaps a frog was nearby.

I know there were frogs around. I heard them in the evenings and I found several clusters of eggs.

Next to our cottage was a rather romantic fairy tale cottage covered in purple /pink Bougainvillaea.

And finally – our cottage right at the end of the path.

The deck with its tranquil view was most welcoming for a rest before that massage.

It was such a wonderful, restful day.

Birds wandered around and foraged for food below the deck.

Our cottage had an outdoor shower area, the privacy walls painted with yet more waterlily motifs.

The bedroom, bamboo lined of course, was simple but very clean and comfortable.

Before dinner at night, we enjoyed a wine tasting in the “wine cave”.  A long boat formed the table. The ceiling was painted with murals and the walls were just clay with holes to hold the wine bottles.

The wine was kept cool in the walls of the “cave”.  A great idea.

These marionette puppets were used as decorations in the wine cave.  We’ll talk more of the importance of puppets in Burmese culture later, but these puppets are just decorative because they have golden faces instead of white as in the traditional “working puppets”.

And when we’d had a delicious dinner and wandered back to our room, there was the bed ready for us, draped in a mosquito net, even though we hadn’t seen any of those pesky little insects.  Still this is a malaria area so it was good not to take any risks.

And that was my day at the hotel. David’s day of exploring will be covered in the next episode of this armchair travelogue.

Jennie Thomas

for jtdytravels.com

All photographs © JT and DY of jtdytravels