As I was wandering along the river in Nyaungshwe. I stumbled upon one of the recommended restaurants here in the village. Actually, it didn’t look like the restaurant I thought it was. It was merely an eatery. They had an English menu. The staff in the restaurant at that time didn’t speak much English, so I ended up pointing to the menu for my order. The restaurant itself was a simple wooden house with tables and chairs in it, nothing really spectacular about it.
One thing probably that shows that the Big Drum Restaurant is quite well known is that they arrange tours of the Inle Lake area for visitors. They also have a lot of photos of the lake for visitos to see. The staff weren’t really that friendly, or maybe they ones that are were outside since I did come at an odd hour for lunch. My order of fried rice was decent, but it basically tasted like any other fried rice I’ve had in and out of Myanmar. Looking back, it would seem that I have been eating more Chinese food than Burmese food, I’m not really like that but it seems that Burmese food is a little more difficult to come across for a tourist like me.
Not needing to rush to get the next bus out of town, I sat outside the restaurant watching Burmese life pass by. It would be difficult to believe that the people here go through such the hardships we so often read in the news. However, the people here just shrug it off and continue on. It is also impressive how the people have managed to keep the river and the lake clean given how much traffic this lake sees. I guess they also know that the lake is their life blood and they need to take care of it. I think this is a lesson a lot of us can learn from.
[xmlgm {http://www.worldwanderings.net/kml/BigDrumRestaurant.kmz} zoom=14]