Villa Inle Resort & Spa, Lake Inle

Located close to the eastern shores of Lake Inle, Villa Inle Resort & Spa boasts some of the best hotel rooms in the region. The villas are spacious with beautiful boutique design, featuring teak floors and splashes of Burmese art and cultural relics. Throne-like beds are very comfortable with crisp, white sheets and mosquito nets dramatically draped overhead. The restaurant serves delicious food, there is a lovely lawn where you can enjoy a sunset cocktail and the spa offers fantastic massages.

Every villa has a private balcony and most look out onto beautiful rural vistas of rice fields and green marshes with water buffalo. In the distance you can see the placid waters of Inle Lake. Whilst the villas are on stilts, they are not in fact over the lake. This means you can still enjoy the stunning views of one-leg fisherman and markets floating idly by, but are far away enough from the water to not be disturbed by the sound of motorboats. Staff are all employed locally to encourage sustainability and work opportunities for locals, and whilst that means service standards are not of the highest international standards, the greeting is still very warm at this beautiful hotel at Inle Lake.

Last visited by Nick Clark in July 2013.