Inle Lake

We flew into Heho Airport impressed with the efficiency of domestic flights. When you check in your airline company puts a sticker on your shirt so they can identify you. It works well as it seems that all of the companies fly at the same time and their loud speaker system is unintelligible. They do seem to track everyone down and have them on the correct flight with their bags. We flew Air Bagan everywhere and were served food and drinks which was a nice surprise.

We were booked into the Princess Garden hotel and were met at the airport. This was another nice small hotel which even had a swimming pool run by very pleasant people and at $40 a night seemed reasonable. There are more options in Inle as it seems to have been a “backpacker” destination rather than a tour company destination for many years and small hotels are in abundance.

We wandered into the town and market which although much less touristy than Bagan still has products for tourists. Restaurants abound serving Western foods where local rum was offered for 60cents a glass. Ken bought a bottle which he planned on taking home but I think is finished already!

We were approached on the street by a local who owned a boat which we booked for the following day for about $22 to go out on the lake which is the major attraction in the area.

Once again we were up before dawn to be on the lake early. As the sun rose we saw several fishermen on flat bottomed boats using both conical and a regularnets. They stand using an oar which they row with their leg and are able to have both hands free. It is an awesome sight to watch them in the early light. They are used to tourists and although there were no other tourists on the water this early one of the fishermen came close to us enabling us to take the first of the many photos we would take in the course of the day.

Our first stop was the market which rotates on a 5 day cycle to the villages surrounding the lake. The Shan people had come in from their villages in the hills and the local Inthe people who have gardens on the lake produce huge numbers of tomatoes and other vegetables.

Our boat found a space amongst the many local boats and we walked up past the oxen and carts which had carried most of the vendors to the market. The market covered a huge area where stalls had been constructed and were filled with a variety of goods. Almost anything they may need was available and a large area where foods and tea was served. There was one section which was aimed at the tourist market with various trinkets and jewelry. Silver is manufactured by one of the villages but the quality was not impressive and was easy to pass on. Ken did find a man forging knives and negotiated one of the kinds used by workers in the fields. Jade is another “hot” seller here but we are very suspicious of the grades—as we are of the so called black market “genuine rubies and sapphires” we have been offered. I did buy some small trinkets for the grandchildren—it is fun to have 9 grandkids as at least one of them will be appropriate for the many dollar things we are offered.

The whole market was one of colour and noise offering  yet more fabulous photo ops—as if we need even more!!!—trying to cull for the blog is impossible!!!! The Shan people wearing the towel like headgear is particularly eye stopping.

Our next stop was the weaving village where they were making some beautiful cotton and silk fabric. They had overcome the fact that tourists have come for the day with little money by offering to give you your purchase with a small deposit and your boat boy, who will get a commission, will collect the rest after you get back to your hotel.

We moved on to the pottery village which I had made a point of requesting. As we arrived pots were being loaded onto a canoe to be paddled to markets—everything on the lake is taken to the main towns by boats. Locals either paddle canoes or if more prosperous use boats with motors which are all laden either with produce for sale or the goods they have purchased at the markets to bring home.

We wandered through the pottery village and were invited into one house under which the “studio” was. The clay comes in from the hill where these Shan people have come from and is pound to a powder and then mixed with water and is amazingly pure and fine. They then throw the pots on a hand spun wheel, the clay is soft and they use one hand to spin and one hand to form using a wet cloth held in the fingers. I tried it but felt terribly uncoordinated and could not keep the wheel spinning fast enough needing both hands—it was not a great success. They, as they did in Vietnam spin the wheel in the opposite direction to us. The larger pots are made on the wheel building with coils as they go. Ground glass like rock from the hills was used on the dried pots as a glaze. They are all then put in a pit where they fire using wood for 5 days. The pots are used mostly as plant pots and containers and are not fired to high temperatures. Most of the houses in the village were manufacturing pottery which they make at this time of year and will plant and harvest rice at other times of the year.

Our next stop was the temples of which there are large numbers and we climbed the hill to explore them. We also stopped at the monastery where they used to train cats to jump through hoops as a solution to boredom. Apparently a new monk in charge made the decision that it was not a particularly appropriate use of time and it no longer takes place.

Returning back to Nyaungshwe, our hotel village, we passed the gardens built on the lake where they successfully grow a wonderful variety of vegetables.

Dinner was had with Mark and Christine, a couple from Victoria we had met previously and they arranged to use our boat boy the next day. We will find them again when we return to Saltspring.

The following day was our last and we had decided to visit the monastery near the town where we were able to witness the lives of the young novices. We used a bike taxi to get there and photographed the young boys through the oval windows as they chanted their mantras they were learning.

When we went inside there were a dozen or more young boys sitting supposedly learning. I was saddened by how young some of the boys were. I felt they should be still with their mothers but perhaps the home situations were so poor they were better off? We are not sure they are being taught more than the Buddhist religion but at least they were reading and presumably writing. We had been told these boys had all made their own choices but at these young ages are easily coerced.

They were interacting as all young boys will, play fighting and giggling. One boy had a cat which he was protecting from the other boys who wanted to poke at it. The experience did sadden me and I hope they will end up equipped to make the choice to leave if they choose when they are older and will be employable.

We had loved being on the water—perhaps because we had been for the last 6 ½ years!!In the afternoon we found yet another boat boy and had him take us to Inthein, an important religious site.

We walked through the village which was preparing for tomorrow’s market, yet another tribe was bringing firewood down from the hills to sell. We walked past many souvenir stalls and then up the covered stairway which is lined with stalls—the longest shopping mall in the world??

We finally reached the main temple and through to the Shwe Inn Thein Paya where the 1000 stupa are in various stages of disrepair and reconstruction. Many people have donated to the reconstruction which appears to be happening at a rapid rate. It was originally built in the 17^th and 18^th centuries.

We walked through the temples carrying our shoes so we could climb the hill behind for the impressive view.

We made our way back enjoying the visions of lake life. Many laden vessels were transiting to and from villages and fishermen were everywhere using various fishing methods. Several would coordinate splashing the paddles in the water driving fish into nets. Others would throw traditional nets and others with the conical ones. All were using the strange leg paddling methods to propel the boats.

We timed it to be coming through the fishermen at sunset and were treated to more wonderful images. This time several other tourist boats were around and the fishermen come to give you opportunities to photograph them expecting a well-earned tip.

Sadly we were to fly to Yangon again in the morning and we wished we had more time. Hiking in this area through the villages in the hills is supposedly great and we would have liked to have been able to do this.

Unfortunately between the sale of the boat and getting to Hong Kong for Christmas does not allow us the opportunity but we are grateful to have visited this part of the world before the majority of tourists arrive.