The ferry jetty was down a rather steep hill. When the brakes were applied to our $1 rental bikes they made a horrendous sound but otherwise didn’t work.

I walked my bike down, but Al went straight down with his brakes screaming. Too bad I didn’t have the video running at the time – those brakes would have made great sound effects.

The ‘ferry’ was not at all what we had expected. Here is the ferry that took us and our bikes across the lake.
We passed small houses on stilts with elevated walkways…
and people fishing.
We got off on the other side…
and waved goodbye to our cheery ferryman.
Our map had several interesting things to see marked on this side of the lake but by this point Al was beat and didn’t know if he could go any further. I was doing fine. (Al said it was because my bike was geared differently, making it way easier for me… hmmmm….)

However, the one thing we both wanted to see was the Inle Lake Winery. It was up a rather imposing hill but once we were there, we found a full-out winery with wine-tasting: two ‘flights’ for $4.50.
I even made wine-tasting notes. Both the Sauvignon Blanc and Rosé had great bouquets that unfortunately didn’t carry through to the taste. The Shiraz-Tempranillo was smokey, hot with lots of tannin and not bad. The Late Harvest was a true late harvest wine, sweet but not too much, and the best of the bunch.
Of course it was all downhill from there, without brakes…

More on our November 2013 trip to Myanmar.