A long, narrow creek runs west off Inle Lake to the village of Indein, where a covered teak walkway leads up the hill to a stunning group of around 1,000 ruined stupas. The earliest date from the third century BC, though most are seventeenth and eighteenth century. Many are crumbling, overgrown with fig trees and weeds — others have been restored, gilded, and painted in startling colours.
The boat trip up the creek is part of the appeal: through reed beds, past floating villages and water buffaloes wallowing in the shallows. Indein has a Monday market on a rotating five-day cycle around the lake — time your visit to catch it.