Inle, The Shan Hills & Bagan

The group will meet this morning at the domestic terminal of Yangon Airport for our flight to Heho. The flight will leave between 10 am and 11:30 am, so you must arrive in Yangon no later than 8 am. Alternatively, you may wish to stay the night before in Yangon. Our 70-minute flight to Heho is followed by a drive of around the same duration to reach Nyaung Shwe, the main town of the Inle Lake area. We stay on dry land rather than on the lake as it's actually a more interesting experience and allows more freedom of movement.

We take a ride around the area to learn a little about the local culture and the farming habits of the people here. We then cycle along the eastern bank of the lake, before taking a boat trip on the lake itself. Here we will see the famous one-leg-rowing fishermen, silk weaving, and whole communities that exist in stilt houses on the lake. Everything from schools, shops, even the post office can be found out here, all within a short boat ride of each other. We will stop at some of the more interesting sites and visit some of the lake's renowned cottage industries such as lotus-silk weaving. This is usually a full day and we can expect to return to town by 4 pm.

Leaving early this morning and after a flat ride to start, we climb out of the valley and up into the Western Shan Hills. This is a challenging ride, but with some lovely views. We reach the town of Kalaw in the mid-afternoon. Kalaw was a British Hill Station in past times and is well populated with colonial style buildings. Kalaw is populated by a diverse range of peoples, including Muslims (mainly originating from Bangladesh), Pa-Oh and Paluang hill tribes, and even the descendants of Nepalese Gurkhas who settled here. The Shan hills are noted for their fresh produce and tonight you'll have a chance to try it at a family-run restaurant.

Another early start today for a short drive that takes us to the Green Hill Valley Elephant Sanctuary, a conservation project founded by two passionate and dedicated tour guides. The project is currently home to seven elephants, five of whom were recently retired from working service in the logging industry. We take a walk around to see the property, the reforestation project and with luck the elephants. From Green Hill Valley we drive down past the trucking town of Aung Ban to start our next ride. This is a lovely ride through rolling hills with patchwork crops, punctuated by groups of villagers working the fields. We roll into the tiny town of Pindaya in the late afternoon and visit the Golden Cave for which the town is famous.

We start with an off-road ride through a seldom visited area where small communities of Pa-Oh will watch curiously as you pedal by. The scenery today gets better at every turn, with limestone crags topped by gold and white stupas giving way to lush flower gardens as we pass through tiny towns. One of these towns is our home for the night. Here a simple guesthouse in a small community awaits and offers an enjoyable night in a truly off-the-beaten-path setting.

This is a challenging yet rewarding ride. The day includes some fun downhill sections, as well as some short climbs to keep you warm. We leave the heights today and as we drop into the Irrawaddy Basin we get some fantastic views from the hills as we fly down them. There are few towns today due to the steep landscape but there are lots of villages whose inhabitants will be truly surprised to see you. This is a much less- traveled route where it is uncommon to see many people on bikes. As we reach the main north-south highway, we board the vehicle for a drive to Bagan which takes around 4 hours.

The pagodas of the Bagan Plain are best visited early in the morning as the sandy landscape heats up by the middle of the day. We make good use of an early start and focus our visit on the temples that were built between the 14th and 19th centuries: Shwezigon, Dhamagyangyi and Ananda to name a few. In the late morning, we find a local restaurant to have lunch then return to the hotel where an afternoon by the pool may be a good way to unwind and enjoy the warm temperatures.

Note: Day 7 is the ideal timing for a sunrise hot air balloon flight over Bagan, considered some of the best ballooning in the world. We can arrange this for you. Prices are approximately US$360 per person and the balloon rides operate between 01 Oct and 15 Apr each year. Please inquire when booking on the tour if this interests you.

The tour concludes after a hearty breakfast. Options for onward travel are many and include domestic flights from Nyaung-u Airport in Bagan (NYU). A quick 30-minute flight to Mandalay or a 50-minute flight to Yangon will bring you to your connecting international flight. For those in no hurry to leave, the beaches of Myanmar beckon. Please feel free to inquire at the time of booking about onward travel plans.