Before we leave for Inle Lake, Kevin checks the spokes of our rear tire. He notes that there are at least three spokes broken. We have to look for new spokes because we don’t carry any spare ones with us. We try to catch up the French truck but we get another flat tyre. This time it’s caused by a broken spoke, which went right through the tube. It seems we’re lucky again to have a puncture where there is a mechanic close by. The mechanic removes four broken spokes of the wheel and Kevin goes to another mechanic to intersperse some of the remaining spokes, to spread the weaknesses over the entire rim. At dusk we arrive at our camping site close to Inle Lake.
In the morning the overlanders leave together towards Inle Lake, so they can share the costs of a boat trip on the lake. Some people stay behind because they have some work to do on their vehicle; including us. Eventually we find a mechanic, who immediately takes off the wheel but we haven’t seen any new spokes yet. We don’t want him to take off the wheel but the man doesn’t understand us, so we decide to wait and see.

The Mechanic Taking off the Wheel

The mechanic asks Kevin to take the wheel under his arm and jump on his scooter, but Kevin starts laughing and tells him he should look for someone else to do this. The mechanic finds a volunteer and leaves with our wheel. For more than two hours we are wondering… When they’re back, it turns out that they had found larger spokes and had cut them in the middle. After which they had welded the two pieces back together on the right size. Not an ideal solution, but it works. They also brought a few spare spokes.
Late in the afternoon we try, together with Ben, to catch a glimpse of the lake. This turns out not to be so evident, but Kevin finds a small road on the GPS that comes very close to the lake. We buy some beers and go to take a look. The road ends up at a five-star resort. To our surprise, we are allowed inside after giving our name and passport number. We walk all the way through the resort and see a wooden terrace on the lake. We pass the bar with the beers in our hand but nobody seems to mind. We take a seat in one of the lounge chairs, open our beer and enjoy the view. We decide to stay to see sunset over Inle Lake. By the time it’s sunset, there are a lot of guests on the terrace. There aren’t even enough seats so the guests of this fancy resort had to sit on the floor behind us.

Enjoying Inle Lake

The lake lies at an altitude of about 1km, so the evenings can be quite cool. Heike and Julian had bought some firewood and that evening we enjoy a big campfire. Even people, who normally never sit with us, come to join us.

Around the Campfire

We don’t make it too late because we want to leave early the next day to stay ahead of the French truck because with welded spokes, you never know.

Scenery around Inle Lake

Preparing Leaves to Eat

More info on www.wijzijnweg.org